


Rock And Riot

by Smokeycut



Series: Earth 54 [2]
Category: Teen Titans, Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Canon Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Let's go fight the US Government, Minor RobRae in the first few chapters, POV Alternating, POV First Person, it doesn't last long though, lots and lots of cameos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:42:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 38,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smokeycut/pseuds/Smokeycut
Summary: In 1947, an alien landed on Earth. In 1954, four young adults come together to save her life. Their names are Dick, Rachel, Garfield, Victor, and Koriand'r. They are Titans. They are heroes.(I promise there's a reason for the first person POV, so please don't count it out over that!)





	1. First Day of The Rest of Your Life

**Unknown location. June 14th, 1949.**

_She was a falling star._

_We actually, genuinely thought that she was just a falling star. It wasn’t until the jeep arrived on site in Roswell, and those soldiers found the burning escape pod driven into the dirt of the desert, that they realized what they had found. The gravity of the situation sank in quickly, however, and they wasted no time in radioing their superiors back at Area 51. That meaning us._

_It took ten men to lift the pod onto the back of the jeep for transport, but they counted themselves lucky that it was small enough to fit. At hardly nine feet by five, the metal pod was compact enough that they weren’t even certain that anyone was inside. I was sitting in the transport vehicle myself, and I found myself wondering the same question that was on all of our minds… What could it possibly be?_

_Looking back at it from the passenger seat of the jeep, I wasn’t sure how the USSR had developed such an advanced design. I didn’t understand how rockets worked; I’m not that sort of scientist after all, but what I did know was that this discovery would change my life forever. I was right about that much. But I thought that they’d find a Russian cosmonaut inside. One who would be whisked away by the CIA and interrogated for space project secrets._

_I didn’t expect it to be a woman. I certainly did not expect it to be a woman who stood at six foot four with orange skin, green eyes, and thick red curls that reached past her waist. After the initial shock, and the arguments over who would be the one to dissect her, I came to the realization that the girl, the alien… She was still alive. I realized it when she fired a blast of green energy that vaporized Director Jim Harper. As my colleagues scrambled to find a way to protect themselves from the alien’s wrath, I was the only one who thought of pacifying her instead._

_All it took was a needle full of mephenesin to weaken her. I, of course, knew it wouldn’t keep her calm forever, but it gave me ample time to shove her back in her pod and close the door. As my luck would have it, doing so restarted the cryogenic process that kept her asleep during her atmospheric entry._

_Over the following weeks, I was the single, immovable force that kept her safe. I demanded that they not dissect her, not yet. They had all the time in the world to kill her and pick her apart to see how she ticked. What we didn’t have, as I explained time and time again, were more of her kind to study. So we had to take her pod somewhere more secure. Somewhere with better equipment. Somewhere that we could study her alien craft, away from prying eyes. The metals, the technology, the controls. Then we could study her in captivity. The properties of her powers, what her people ate, their language and mannerisms. Finally, once we had learned all there was to learn from her, then I would allow them to put a bullet in her brain and see what she looked like on the inside._

_We had all the time in the world to study her. And as for her, the fallen star herself? Frozen once again in her escape pod, she was freed from the ravages of the passage of time. The world aged around her, but she did not age with it. It has been two years now, to the very day, but she still seems to be a teenager. She has been frozen in time. Such a beautiful specimen indeed._

_-Doctor Simon Jones_

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

**Dick Grayson**

**San Francisco, California. September 8th, 1954.**

You know that phrase “the first day of the rest of your life”? That was today. My first day in San Francisco. My first day outside of Gotham since I was eight years old. My first day away from Bruce, away from being Robin. The first day where I got to be _me_. My own man, young as I was. Eighteen years old, moving into college… I finally did it. I finally broke free of that cage. 

I met my roommate on my way into the dorms, around ten in the morning. Some kid from Keystone by the name of Wally West. He was nice enough, if a bit full of himself. Then again, I guess everyone is to an extent. What was weird was how all of his clothes were either yellow or red. But hey, he complimented my new haircut, so I can’t imagine things could go all that badly between us. Unless he decided to go and get a face full of acid, of course. That always seemed to put a damper on friendships. 

I turned my head to the poster that hung beside my bed. It was the only thing I brought with me from Gotham, aside from the new clothes Alfie helped me shop for. An old poster from the circus. It was worn and fading, but every time I looked at it… I felt so much pride. Pride in myself, in my parents, in what we used to do every night… Even if I’d changed so much since then, so much so that I became unrecognizable, I still felt pride when I looked at it. I liked to think that my parents, if they were still alive, would feel that same pride in me.

I really did miss them. I couldn’t say if I’d ever _stop_ missing them. Bruce said it never went away, and I was really starting to believe that.

Under my bed were two suitcases. Both recently emptied of all my clothes and toiletries. But hidden in one, beneath a false wall, was my suit. Not the business kind. I was at San Francisco State College for criminal justice studies, but I was still very much eighteen years old. No, it was _my_ suit. _The_ suit. The one I sewed together the week before I hopped on the plane to California. The one that I was hoping I wouldn’t have to pull out for a while. 

I looked at the clock on the wall, and saw that it was already noon. All it took was a quick spring out of bed and I was out the door. Wally had vanished down the hall the minute he finished putting his things away, but I could see him at the other end, leaning in a doorway and chatting it up with some beatnik looking kid dressed all in blue with shaggy black hair. I gave them a small salute before slipping out of the dorm hall and making my way out onto the campus. 

I hate to give the city any amount of credit, but back in Gotham, I loved that small moment between seasons so much. When the summer heat began to grow cooler, but the leaves weren’t quite turning yet. When I could go out late in the day and watch the sun set without worrying about being bitten all over by bugs. 

Nobody ever told me that it got _hotter_ during the fall in California. I was practically sweltering in my blue polo and chinos. My first thought as I walked outside and the massive heat hit me was that I really needed to find a clothing store sometime and buy some shorts. The second thought was that a very large and very warm wall had just collided with me as I rounded a corner. 

I looked up and saw a guy, probably only a few years my senior, glowering at me. He had a thick head full of red hair, and a green oxford sweater on over his shirt. The collision nearly sent me to the ground, but his massive hand wrapped around my wrist and kept me from falling. He pulled me up and looked me over with a glance before grunting in a deep, almost caveman-esque tone. From how he was built, and the large scar across his cheek, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was a genuine neanderthal that spent his days fighting wild animals for a meal. 

“Watch where you walk, buddy,” The girl at his side said snidely. Her hair was similarly red, and her expression was equally severe, if not more so. She glared at me with piercing green eyes, which matched the color of her dress, and handed a yellow textbook to the giant who nearly bowled me over just a second earlier. “Come on, Baran, let’s get going. Doctor Jones needs us at his lab in fifteen.”

Her companion grunted again and lumbered after her, shooting me another prickly glare as he passed by. As they walked away, I could barely make out him speaking, which I wasn’t quite sure he knew how to do, and calling her “Selinda”. With any luck, that’d be my last time getting on their bad sides. 

I lost my train of thought after the encounter. Couldn’t even remember where I was heading. But the sun was still shining down on me, and the growling in my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since I got off the plane that morning. So, with no food entering my stomach since around four in the morning, I made an executive decision to fix that. 

I walked through the campus, familiarizing myself with the structure and layout of the area. One of the first things Bruce taught me as a kid was to know my surroundings. If it was my playground, it gave me a leg up on any opponents. 

I spotted a few girls sitting at a table out on the grass, crowded around a radio and listening to a news report. I didn’t expect people my age to take that much of an interest in the news, at least not unless they were political science majors, but as I got closer, I understood why. 

_”-is morning, a bank robbery was foiled by none other than our favorite local hero! Yes, that’s right, boys and girls, Beast Boy himself made an appearance to take down the Royal Flush Gang, and he even signed a few autographs after!”_

“Beast Boy fans, huh?” I said, coming to a stop near the cluster of students. “Have any of you ever seen him in action?” It was a harmless question on the surface. But I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t ask it for the sake of gaining some more knowledge about the teenage celebrity superhero. All I knew about him were the powers, animalistic shape-shifting, and the green skin. 

“Oh yeah!” One girl, a brunette in glasses, said with an enthusiastic nod. “Jo and I saw him, what, two weeks ago? Outside the movie theater!”

“He was fighting Doctor Light,” Her blonde friend explained. “You shoulda seen it! I _screamed_ when he turned into a tiger.”

“It was so scary! I almost got zapped by Doctor Light!” The brunette claimed.

“Oh please! It hit the marquee, you were _fine_ ,” Jo insisted. She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “She’s always dramatizing.”

“I’m jealous. It’d be great to see a real superhero. All we had back home in Gotham was Batman,” I said with a grin. 

“I heard that guy’s a creep,” A third girl, another blonde, said in a stage whisper. It was like she was trying to pretend she was scared to talk about him. Like he’d come and get her if he somehow heard her slander him. I had to fight a chuckle at that. “Does he really drink peoples’ blood?”

And that did it. I burst into a fit of laughter and shook my head. “Not that I ever heard of, no. But hey, I can’t say I ever met the guy.”

The fun fact about lying is that the more you do it, the easier it gets. Saying I never met Batman so confidently, I nearly convinced _myself_. And those three girls certainly believed me. But the girl who was walking past me (don’t think I didn’t notice her from a mile away) seemed to differ. 

As I sauntered off, towards the edge of campus, the raven haired girl shot a look at me and muttered something under her breath. “You lied to them,” She said. Her vocal fry caught me as off guard as the statement did. She was so certain, and she spoke like a woman twenty years older than she was. 

I found myself walking in pace with her, this girl with eerily pale skin and straight black hair. She wore a plain white blouse and, much to my surprise, a purple poodle skirt. It was about the most clashing image I’d ever seen from a civilian. She acted and sounded so much more mature than her young face or her utterly _teenage_ sense of style would have indicated. So, naturally, I just decided to joke about it. 

“You know, I’m normally great at reading people, but I just can’t tell with you. Are you an Elvis girl, or do you prefer classical?”

“Funny,” She said flatly. I was already botching this, and I knew it. I felt my heart drop in my chest. Much as I loved to joke, I hated to actually hurt anyone’s feelings. Well, unless they were aiming a six shooter at my face.

“No, honest,” I told her. “I genuinely can’t get a read on you. Half of you screams “I’m an old soul” and half says “just your average sixteen year old”. I’m just wondering which it is.”

“Can’t someone be both? And besides, I was born in thirty seven, not thirty eight. I’m seventeen.” She asked. Damn, there was something about this girl. Something interesting. Something I wanted to get to know.

“Huh. Alright then, fair answer,” I admitted. My patented wide, cocky Grayson smile grew smaller, more genuine. She smiled too, just barely. It was kinda cute. “I’m a thirty six kid myself. Turned eighteen earlier this year.”

She came to a stop at the edge of the campus. I stopped, and turned to face her. She looked at me like I was some kind of specimen for study. “Hmm. You still lied to those girls about not having met Batman.”

“How could you tell?”

“I’m just… Good at noticing when people lie,” She said. “But you haven’t told me why you did that.”

I held my hands behind my head and leaned against the nearest wall. “I just don’t want the hassle, you know? Superhero fans are great and all, but the minute they know you’ve seen one in action, they’ll never stop digging for more. I’ve been through it all before, you know?”

“No, I don’t, actually.” She looked at me, and still, for the life of me, I just couldn’t read her expression. “I’ve never seen one.”

“Really? That’s rare these days. Where are you from?” 

“Here. I’ve lived in San Francisco my whole life, but I’ve never seen a superhero.” She didn’t sound disappointed by the fact. It was just, well, a fact. 

“What about Beast Boy?”

“I think I’d remember seeing a guy with green skin,” She said. “Sorry. I’m not exactly… Great at talking to new people. My friends keep telling me I have to work on that.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said, laughing it off. “I’m Dick, by the way. Dick Grayson.” I reached out and extended my hand. She paused, and looked at it for a moment, before shaking it.

“Rachel Roth. It’s nice to meet you, Dick Grayson.”

“Likewise. And I’m gonna be honest, I actually really appreciate the kinda girl who wears a poodle skirt to her first day at college. It takes moxy, not giving a crap like that.”

She blew air out through her nose in what I’m _pretty sure_ was a laugh, and her hand brushed against her skirt. I meant what I said, though. Back in high school, I found that fad so weird and childish. But seeing a girl wear one, and unapologetically at that, to a university? That was actually pretty dang impressive.

“My aunt likes to make my clothing herself, so I’ve actually got quite a few of them,” She admitted, looking down at her shoes. “I kept telling myself I was going to replace them all before moving into the dorms, but clearly I haven’t done that yet. You… Weren’t lying about liking it.”

“Nope,” I chuckled. I looked off towards the street, and her gaze followed mine. “Hey, you know, I was actually just about to go walk around town for a bit and look for a place to eat. I’m _starving_. If you’re not busy… Wanna grab some lunch with me?”

I glanced back at her to catch her reaction, and she was actually caught off guard by my offer. Her mouth opened, and she stammered for a moment, before she gave any sort of response. 

“Do you mean like… A date?” She asked, clearly unsure. I couldn’t help but feel like this girl hadn’t had much attention paid to her before. At least, that’s what I told myself in order to avoid the option that was more depressing for me.

“Yeah, like a date,” I told her. “You’re a cute girl, and I like to think that I’m a handsome guy… And afterwards, if you decide you’d rather just stay friends, that’s fine too. What do you say?”

“I… Would not be opposed to that, Dick Grayson. There’s actually a diner on Haight Street, not very far from here. We could go there, if you’d like.”

“Sounds like a plan, Rachel.”

I cannot stress enough just how relieved I was to hear her say that. I walked beside her as we officially exited the college campus, and I smiled warmly at her as she started telling me about the classes she was taking. She was a big literature fan, going for a degree in education. She wanted to be an English teacher. Her house wasn’t far from the school, but she wanted to live on campus so that she could meet new people and gain new experiences. 

The more she talked, the more I realized that she wasn’t quite as closed off as I had first assumed. She was guarded, yes, but not a block of ice. I actually felt a bit guilty about the fact that I had to hide so much of myself and my life from her. But the little Bruce voice in my head reminded me that I couldn’t trust random girls with my secret identity. I hated knowing that he was right. 

Of course, I didn’t know at the time that by the end of the day, she was going to know the secret I was keeping hidden beneath my bed.


	2. Soul Shadows

**Unknown location. December 25th, 1953.**

_Christmas day always brought a smile to my face, but I think this year was my best Christmas yet. Ever since Janice died, I’ve found myself spending the holidays here, with the girl. The alien. We’ve taken to calling her Comet around the lab, but that name never felt quite right to me._

_Regardless of what we call her, what we have learned from her and her craft is on another plane entirely. NACA sent people over to examine the pod she arrived in early last year; as soon as they caught wind of what we had discovered six years ago. My superiors at the CIA decided it would be for the best if I was placed in charge of her care, and I could not be happier with their decision._

_She fascinates me, this girl from far beyond the stars. Ever since Superman showed us we were not alone in this universe, I have dreamt of being able to study an extraterrestrial up close. Thanks to this girl, that dream has become a reality._

_It took a few years for our studies to yield fruit, but the few occasions that we’ve woken her from her cryogenic slumber have been consistently enlightening. Her energy discharges, the same ones that killed my old boss, appear to be concentrated bursts of solar energy. This girl is a living battery! Her very cells seem to drink in light and turn it into destructive energy! And I have held in my mind the steadfast belief that she is the key to accessing the true power that we, as Earth's dominant species, are capable of._

_Like I said at the beginning of my journal entry, today was the greatest Christmas of my life. My present? The permission to begin testing her more rigorously. Tonight, we took her from her pod and placed her in a bunker. There is no way for her to escape the room, even with her solar discharges. I have a special window, designed to be unbreakable even by Superman himself, through which to view her. She is still so young, but over the coming years, I believe I will learn a great deal from her._

_I have also reached out to a university in San Francisco, in order to begin a special program. The HIVE program, as I’ve named it, is a vital step in our operation. Students, hand selected by myself, will undergo small tests in the name of scientific advancement. My colleagues have been performing similar experiments all across this great nation of ours, but I believe that with what I am learning from this girl and her alien genes, I will be the one to truly unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I have already begun looking over student files for next year’s class, and I believe I have found a few volunteers that would fit perfectly into my HIVE program._

_All in due time, of course. I wouldn’t want to go and get ahead of myself, now would I?_

_-Doctor Simon Jones_

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

**Rachel Roth.**

**San Francisco, California. September 8th, 1954**

I do not know what I expected my first day at college to be like, but I know that it was not what happened. 

Aunt Alice and Uncle Jack helped me unpack my things in the morning, and I felt rather sad to see them off. I knew that I could visit them whenever I wanted, but they were the only family I had here. They were my anchor. Watching them drive away in Uncle Jack’s convertible was the hardest thing I’ve had to do since I came to live with them.

But it was not long before another figure entered my life. I watched from afar as he made a fool of himself in front of the Flinders twins. I had met Selinda earlier in the morning, on her way out of the dorms. Oftentimes, even when someone shows a surly exterior, I can sense a kinder soul beneath. I wish I could say the same about her. 

I normally would not have made my remark about him lying. I don’t know why I did. Perhaps it was all the chaos of the day getting to me. Perhaps it was seeing a kind person hide the truth for seemingly no reason. Perhaps it was just an irrational, spur of the moment comment. Something that I know better than to do. 

But after the initial conflict, he proved himself to have a kind soul. That is not something I could ever deny. It would seem that even a city as dark and cruel as Gotham has the ability to create good men. What I did not expect was for him to ask me to lunch. I have always known that I was an… Odd person. In high school, that meant that my peers found me unappealing. The other girls did not want me as a friend, and the boys did not see me in _that way_. I merely accepted it as a fact of my life, and a consequence of my upbringing. I cast the sadness and self doubt aside and retreated into my studies, even if it meant closing myself off from those my age. 

As we walked away from the campus, towards Dick's car, I found that the wall I had built up began to crumble. Dick Grayson had a way of disarming people, and making you feel comfortable around him. I felt that I could trust him, at least with some things. And if he rejected me in the end, as people often did, then that was simply another disappointment in my social life. 

“So, what do you do for fun?” He asked, in that light, airy voice that made it seem like he was always walking on air. He opened the car's passenger side door for me, before sitting in the driver's seat.

“I read,” I told him. I held my book tighter against my chest, until he asked about it. He wanted to know what it was. I showed him the cover, and told him the name. “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.”

“Sounds fancy,” He said with a breezy chuckle. 

“I was expecting you to say childish,” I admitted. Even as I opened up to him, I found myself exercising caution. I was prepared for an emotional blow that would not come. “Most people think that fairy tales are only suitable for children.”

He laughed. Not in a derisive way, though. It was, like his attitude, disarming. He put a hand on my shoulder. It was… Soft. Not at all like the rugged, calloused hands that most young men his age had. 

“The way I see it, when you’ve got people like Doctor Fate and Wonder Woman running around, it’s hard to call fairy tales unrealistic. Besides, you like what you like. Anyone who gives you guff for that it just a grade-A jerk.”

I smiled slightly at the statement, and looked down at my feet. “I’m going to university so that I can become a teacher,” I shared. 

“I can see it. You’ve got a teacher’s personality,” He said. “I’m going for a degree in criminal justice myself.”

“Really?” I asked. “You don’t seem like the type.”

He grinned and shook his head gently. “My dad is a detective. We don’t always see eye to eye, me and him, but I want to do the kind of thing he does. Just… My way, not his. Does that make sense?”

I nodded. It did make sense. And I could sense that, at least in this respect, he was telling the truth, even if there was something more. There was something beyond his words, but I wasn’t sure what, exactly, that something was. 

He continued to act like a gentleman throughout the rest of the afternoon. He held the door of the diner open for me, and made sure I was happy with our booth before he sat down across from me. There was a jukebox in the corner of the restaurant, playing a song that I had never heard before. Some doo wop number, if I understood my genres correctly. I set my book down on the table and looked at Dick. He was tapping his fingers along to the beat of the song like he had heard it a million times before. He carried himself like it was his favorite hangout spot, even though he hadn’t even known it existed ten minutes ago. He was comfortable, _genuinely_ comfortable, even in a new environment. 

I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious at that.

Our waitress was a girl with short, golden blonde hair and a pink uniform. A cigarette was tucked behind her ear, and she had a pen and notepad ready and waiting as she walked up to our table. Her name tag read “Tara”, and I could feel exhaustion radiating from her. No doubt she had been working all morning, and was agitating to clock out for the day. 

“Heya, folks. My name’s Tara, I’ll be your waitress today, you know the drill. Now what can I getcha to drink?”

“I’ll have a lemonade, thanks!” Dick said with the same friendly smile he wore as he talked to those Beast Boy fangirls back at the school.

“I’d like a water, if it’s not too much trouble,” I said. Tara nodded and casually tossed a pair of menus onto the table as she sauntered away. 

“Cozy place,” Dick noted as he leaned back and stretched his arm across the back of his seat. “You said you come here often?”

“Sometimes. Usually with my family,” I explained. “My cousins like the food here a lot.”

“Huh. It’s weird, you haven’t mentioned your parents once, you know” He said. The words were calm and delivered with such normalcy, but it felt like a stab through my heart for him to broach that subject so openly. Perhaps I was wrong to have opened up to him to the extent that I did. 

“I…” I trailed off, unsure of what to say. I couldn’t admit to him the truth. That my mother had been… That she had been _violated_ and abandoned by my father. That I was a _bastard_. I couldn’t tell him about that, about how shameful it was just for me to have been _born_. My father was a monster, and I was… I was half of him… 

“Rachel?” 

I looked at the table, all shiny and red, with chrome that reflected my _face_ back at me. I could see the parts of me that resembled my mother, and the parts that _didn’t_. My cheekbones, my brow, my eyes… I had never seen him before, not outside of my _nightmares_ , but I _knew_ that those features in my reflection must have come from _him_. From the dark, ugly part of me. I could feel my soul _slipping_ , I could see my shadow on the floor as it began to waver and tremble.

“Rachel!”

I looked up, and I saw Dick through blurry eyes. He offered me a napkin, and I used it to dry my tears. I hadn’t even realized that my eyes were welling up. So I quieted my soul; I chained it down and suppressed my emotions, just like I had been taught to do as a child. It was dangerous for me to get emotional. I should have known better. I should have been in control.

“I’m sorry,” He said. His brow was furrowed, and worry was written across his face. Guilt as well. “Are you alright?”

“I am… I am alright,” I said quietly. My words were designed as much to convince myself as they were to convince him. “I am sorry, Richard.”

“No need to be sorry. Parents can be a tough subject,” He said. He crossed his arms in front of his body and leaned onto the table. “My folks died when I was eight. My dad, the one I mentioned earlier, he adopted me ten years ago. That’s what I was thinking about when I asked about yours. Sorry if I upset you.”

I swallowed and nodded my head. “I am sorry for your loss,” I told him. He nodded, but his smile had fallen away. “My… My parents are gone as well. My aunt and uncle have raised me like I was one of their own. They are the only family I have.”

“It’s never easy, is it?” He asked. I had a feeling that it was a rhetorical question. 

“We should order, I think,” I said. He laughed gently and nodded in agreement. 

As my emotional outburst subsided and faded into memory, I found myself studying him. I watched him as he browsed the menu. His right hand kept brushing against the nape of his neck, across the bottom of his hair. I sensed that there was something else he was hiding. Something other than his past in Gotham. There was something about _him_ that he was hiding, and… And if I was correct, I did not know why he had asked me on a date. Unless… 

I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. It was impolite to make assumptions. And besides, Dick was _nice_. All the way to the core of his soul, I could sense that one truth above all others. He was kind.

The waitress returned, and freed me from my prying thoughts. But when I saw Dick smile warmly at her, that smile took on a different context in my mind. Again, I pushed those thoughts away and looked at the menu. I hadn’t even checked it once in the time since she had taken our drink orders.

“You two lovebirds ready to order?” She asked as she set our glasses down on the table. A moment ago, I’d have blushed at the implication that we were going steady. Now, the notion seemed so strange to me. It was an impossibility, wasn’t it?

“I think I’ll have the BLT, Tara,” Dick said. He looked to me and smiled that disarming smile of his. The one that, even now, convinced me everything was perfectly fine. 

“That comes with a choice of fries or coleslaw. Which one you want, buddy?”

“Fries.”

“And you, poodle skirt?” She asked. Unlike Dick, there was an edge to her voice as she brought up my clothing. She smirked as she wrote Dick’s order down on her notepad. It wasn’t a nice smirk.

“I’ll have the greek salad. No side, please,” I said calmly. She rolled her eyes and wrote down my order. She was upset by the fact that I _wasn’t_ upset, but I also sensed a part of her that was at least somewhat impressed. She grabbed our menus and made for the kitchen, taking a drag on her cigarette as she walked away.

We talked more as we ate. None of the conversations were big or dramatic, but they were illuminating. It became clear to me that, although I truly did want to befriend him, and while he was undeniably attractive, I was not interested in Dick romantically. Thankfully, I sensed the same thing from him. But in spite of that, I enjoyed myself greatly. I had never had a friend before. Not outside of my cousins. Finding someone who I could talk to openly and genuinely about my interests and my family, and who was similarly open with me, was a breath of fresh air in my life. 

It wasn’t until close to two hours later that we left the diner. As fate would have it, our waitress clocked out around the same time, and we found ourselves trailing behind her on the walk back to the school from Dick's car. 

“I didn’t realize she was a student,” Dick mused. 

“Neither did I.” I looked aside, then stopped outside the entrance to the grounds. “Dick?”

“Yeah?” He asked. He turned to face me, and the questions I had been silently wondering earlier came flooding back to the forefront of my mind. I knew it was inappropriate to ask, but I did anyways. Still, I cared for his privacy, so I extended my soul self with as much subtlety as I could, and suppressed the sounds of our conversation. Nobody would hear what we had to say, even if only I realized it. Still, I found myself whispering the words.

“Dick… I promise that I won’t tell anyone, but… Are you…”

“Am I what?”

“It’s nothing. Sorry for bothering you.”

I retracted my soul self before he could notice it, and I shrank inwards, holding my book in front of my chest like a piece of armor. He tilted his head in confusion, but shrugged it off quickly. He stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed. 

“You know, I had a great time and all, but…”

“But you are not interested in me as anything more than a friend?”

“That about covers it, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but this time it was my turn to brush it off. 

“I am perfectly okay with that, Dick. It would be nice to have a friend.”

“I thought you mentioned some friends of yours earlier,” He said as he playfully nudged my arm with his elbow.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I had lied?”

He laughed gently. “Well hey, you’ve got one now.”

We walked back to campus in silence, but I felt that the walls between us were far fewer in number than when we had met just a few hours ago. I think that Dick felt that too. We arrived back on the grounds in time for orientation, and in the aftermath he walked me back to the girls’ dorms before heading back to his own. He promised to find me in the morning and talk again before classes began.

But I saw him sooner than that. Late at night, as I lay in bed reading, I heard something outside. My roommate, Donna, slept soundly through it. I looked through our window and saw something crash into the yard outside. Something green and _burning_. 

My soul self cried out in response to the unexpected event, and I wasted no time in dressing myself and hurrying outside. If anyone was hurt, I would be able to heal them. It was the one benefit of my cursed blood, I suppose. But what I found was far stranger than anything I ever could have expected.

There was a girl, lying in a small crater. She was taller than any woman I had met before, and her skin was _orange_. Her hair burned like fire, and green light shone from her eyes. Standing across the crater from me was a young man in a black gymnast’s outfit, with a blue bird emblem splashed across his chest. Black grease paint covered his eyes, and he held a metal baton in each hand.

Even in the dead of night, and even in that costume, I recognized Dick Grayson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, don't forget to kudos and comment! I love hearing what people are thinking!


	3. Baby, You're My Light

**Unknown location. September 8th, 1954.**

_We are so close to a breakthrough. I can practically feel it at this point, and I cannot wait to reach that glorious point where all of my research and dedication will bear fruit. Humanity will reach our next stage of evolution, and it will all be thanks to us. Years of testing, years of research, years of waiting… We are so close._

_I have extracted several vials of her alien blood over the past month, and as of yesterday we have begun animal testing with it. Results have been astonishing so far. There is no other word to describe it. The transformations that I have witnessed took my breath away._

_Of course, I can’t discount the help of my students. The four of them are such eager little beavers; All chomping at the bit to begin work on our special seminar. Naturally, none of these children are even the slightest bit aware of my true intentions. They still believe that we’ll be testing an experimental serotonin booster. Such well behaved little lambs they are. Even still, they could always be more obedient..._

_I plan to begin human testing soon._

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

**Princess Koriand’r.**

**Unknown location. September 9th, 1954**

I woke to a pain in my side. I touched it and seethed as pain shot through my abdomen. I curled up into a ball and screamed as the pain grew more intense. They had stuck something to me. It _hurt_ , and I hated them for it. Wave after wave of pain crashed through my body, rattling my teeth and searing my mind, but the _thing_ on my side was its epicenter. That much I could tell. 

I grabbed at it again and tore it from my body with a scream of pain and rage. I heard noises on the other side of the wall, beyond the glass. I looked at the _thing_ and saw that it was a circular metal device with spokes sticking out of the underside. They were slick with blood. _My_ blood. I touched a hand to my side, again, and saw that I was bleeding badly.

I pushed myself up on my hands and knees as the heavy steel door swung open. I was weak. Too weak to fight at my full ability. I was hurt and I was bleeding, but I saw the needle in one man’s hand. I have grown to hate needles during my time on this planet. They make me feel slow, and they dull my mind and they weaken my muscles. 

I did not want to be stuck with another needle for as long as I lived. 

I roared at him, and he faltered. His empty hand went up, and he started shouting words that I did not understand. All of their words were so _confusing_. Their language was alien and foreign, and they responded to Interlac with as much confusion as my native Tamaranean. So… I roared. He understood _that_.

I forced myself onto my unsteady legs and I slammed his face into the nearest wall. The needle slipped from his grasp and rolled along the floor. I stomped on it; I _crushed_ it. I would not allow them to dull my mind or body ever again. I made that vow as glass cut my feet.

The other one, the frail, pink-skinned alien, raised a gun in my direction. I lashed out and backhanded him, swatting him out of the room like an insect. I grabbed his gun off of the ground and placed my finger on the trigger. I knew that I only had so much power left in my body, and I would not waste it when another weapon was available. 

Men in black uniforms chased after me, but I did not hesitate to kill them first. I had been fighting for my freedom ever since I was a child, and I would never be content to remain a captive. But as I ran through the halls and as bullets grazed my side, not once did I see the man in the white coat. The one who watched me. The one who _leered_ at me. The one who treated me like an _experiment_. 

If I had seen him, I would have taken my time to kill him. Only him. 

I came to a locked door, and found that I could not break it. Behind me I heard several heavy footsteps. I knew that I was close. I could not explain it, but I knew deep in my heart. I took a breath, and prayed to X’Hal for freedom at long last.

And then I melted a hole in the door with a starbolt and dove through it. 

And thank merciful X’Hal, because I found my pained feet stumbling across dirt, and then grass. I was _free_. I could feel the fresh air filling up my lungs, and brushing against my skin, and blowing through my hair. But there was no sun up above; only a single moon. What energy I had left was fading after the starbolt, and I could hear shouting behind me. I could hear an alarm sounding. I could hear bullets land in the dirt around me. 

I kicked off the ground and soared through the air, with my fire streaking behind me. It was all I could do to stay in the sky, to keep myself from falling to the earth below. If I fell, they would find me. I kept that thought in my heart, above all others. I needed to fly for as long as I could. I needed to find somewhere _safe_. Somewhere that they could not find me. 

It was sometime after that that I blacked out.

When I woke up, I had to fight with my own eyes just to see through the darkness that swamped over me. It was still night, but I was not in the lab. I had not been found. At least… Not by the man in the white coat.

There were two people who stood above me. I tried to stand, but a pained noise escaped my lips and I fell onto my arms. They were speaking in hushed tones, but still I could not understand the words. As my vision cleared, I could see the figures better, and they were… Strange.

There was a girl who knelt over me with her hands outstretched. She wore an oddly designed blue dress, and the smallness of her waist was quite upsetting. Did the women of this planet not have stomachs? 

It was the man who stood above her that truly caught my eye, however. He was not as tall as the men in the lab, nor as old. He appeared to be my age, as did the girl. He wore black, and held a pair of sticks in his hands. Black paint was smeared over his eyes, but I did not understand _why_. He knelt beside the girl and reached out to touch my shoulder. That was when I finally understood the words that these people babbled.

“-ure she’s going to be alright? She looks half dead,” The man said. He sounded worried over me. Not at all like the ones who had experimented on me.

“I can save her,” The girl promised. She was sweating, and she looked to be in pain. It was then that I realized I was _not_. Not anymore, at least. I looked down at myself and I saw the wound in my side close up. There wasn’t even a scar left behind as proof of the damage that had been done to me by those cruel monsters. 

“It’s going to be alright, ma’am,” The man said. There was a small, hopeful smile on his face. I saw it, and I felt at peace. Whoever this stranger was, I believed him. He held my hand and I grasped his as tightly as I could. 

I looked back to the girl and I saw her trembling. Her hands hovered above my body, and she gasped for air. I did not understand what was wrong. She was healing me, and yet… It was as though she was suffering my own pain for me. After several more silent, tense moments, her hands fell away and landed in her lap. She looked uneasy, then turned away to vomit. 

“Is she alright?” The girl asked as she turned to look back at us. She was breathing heavily, but much to my relief, she appeared to be alright. I placed my hand on her shoulder and smiled, and she smiled weakly at me in return. 

The man pulled her to her feet, and then me. I staggered on weak and unsteady legs, but he reached out and made sure that I did not fall. I thanked him with a kiss.

“Thank you,” I whispered. He was left blushing, in a rather cute manner. I looked at the girl, who stared at us with wide eyes. “Both of you.”

I stepped closer to her, but she took a step back in response. I did not understand why. Was she intimidated by my stature? By seeing a lifeform not native to her world?

“I don’t know if I want tonight to be the first time I kiss a nude woman,” The girl said. But she gave me a nod, and I suppose that was enough for her. I returned the nod. “Who are you?” She asked. 

“Before we answer that question,” The man cut in. “I think it’d be for the best if we got you somewhere nice and secluded before the authorities show up and come snooping.”

I felt the anger inside me bubble up again, and I scowled. “Your “authorities”. Are they the ones that kidnapped me? The ones who tortured me?!”

He sighed, and shook his head ruefully. “Most likely. Come on, we should go. You, college student, can you head back to your room and grab her something to wear? Meet us on the roof of the boys dorms.”

That was how it went. The two of us entered a building and crept through its halls. We climbed several stairs and he picked a lock on a door that led us to a rooftop. He went back inside, and returned with a blanket for me to wrap myself in. It was soft, and it was blue. Like his eyes. We sat in silence for several minutes until the girl, “College Student” he called her, floated above our heads and landed on the ground near us. 

“You’re full of surprises tonight,” The man said with a gentle laugh. It appeared as though they already knew each other, but they were so welcoming to me. So much kinder than the rest of their people. 

“It’s a long story,” She said simply. She carried in her arms a bundle of fabric, which she handed to me. It was soft and purple and it smelled nice. Did these people perfume their garments as they were washed? Regardless of their oddities, I was grateful for the clothing. I stood, and shrugged the blanket off of my shoulders, and began to pull the dress over myself. They turned away, both equally flustered by the sight of my nudity. 

It was a tight fit, and I worried that I may have burst a few seams in the sides, but I managed to wriggle my way into it. Given that I was a foot taller than the dress’ owner, it was much shorter on me than it should have been. But it was _something_ , and that was enough for me. 

“I do not know the last time I had _clothing_ to wear. It has been so long. Thank you, College Student, my new friend,” I said as I pulled the girl into a joyous hug.

“My name is Rachel.” Her words were muffled by my hair, but I nodded in understanding. 

“Thank you, _Rachel_ , my new friend,” I corrected myself. I released Rachel, and turned to face the man with the gentle blue eyes. “And thank you, my other new friend. Whatever your name may be.”

The man smiled, and gave me a two fingered salute. “You can call me Nightwing,” He said. “You said that you were kidnapped? Do you know who did it? Where they held you? Why?”

“I… I am not sure. They were like you. They were mammals, and they had pink skin. They all wore black, except for one man. He wore a white coat, and they listened to him. Do you know who that man was?”

Nightwing sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck. “That could have been anyone. Probably someone working for the government. Did you hear anything they said that could have explained who they were, or what they wanted with you?”

“No. I do not know. I was escaping from the Gordanian cruiser when I fell asleep. When I woke up, there were men yelling and shouting at me. They drugged me, and put me back to sleep. I woke up a few times since then, before they put me in a room. I do not know how long I was kept there, but I escaped tonight. I flew as far as I could before you found me.”

“And you didn’t hear any names, or, I don’t know, anything that they said?”

“Not that I could understand,” I explained. “My people learn languages through skin-to-skin contact. The first time I experienced that was when we touched.”

“Darn.” He huffed, and looked off into the distance. 

“Dick, we need to find somewhere safe for her to stay,” Rachel told him. He looked at her, surprised by something she said. “If she stays here, they’ll find her eventually.”

“I can fight them off,” I told them. “I simply need to recharge, and then I can destroy whatever foes come our way!”

“We can’t do that,” The girl said in a low voice. “It wouldn’t go well. Trust me.”

“I think I have an idea,” Nightwing said. “Don’t know if you’ll like it, Rachel, but… I think our best bet would be getting a superhero involved.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“Got any better ideas? I’m all ears.”

“I’m sorry, a superhero? What do you mean by that?” I asked. I looked from Nightwing to Rachel, and then back again. They looked uncomfortable, but resigned to this course of action. 

“Someone like us,” Nightwing explained. “Just… Flashier.”

“That would be one way to put it,” Rachel sighed. “Personally, I wouldn’t even call this one a superhero. He’s a celebrity. He uses his fame to grab guest spots on _sitcoms_. That’s no superhero, it’s a superzero.”

“He saves people. She’s people, and she could do with some saving. Would you rather we try and contact Superman?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, let’s at least give him a try. It’s our best shot!” He insisted. She looked from him to me and sighed.

“Fine. We’ll give him a shot. But when we get egg on our face, I reserve the right to say so.”

I was hopelessly lost. I still did not understand what a “superhero” was, or what made this one such a hazardous risk. Nor did I understand what a “sitcom” was. But I was on a strange and frightening planet, and I would have to trust them. They had not led me astray so far.

It was good to have friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all still enjoying this! I promise, BB and Cy are on their way!
> 
> Don't forget to kudos and comment!


	4. Wild Thing

**Gar Logan**

**San Francisco, California. September 9th, 1954.**

I rolled out of bed at noon to the sound of a ringing phone. 

I pulled the handset off the base and held it to my ear. Or, well… In the general area of my ear. I heard a familiar, tinny voice going off way faster than I could keep up. Not this early in the morning. 

“Booster, give me a second, alright? It’s too early to talk shop,” I groaned. 

“Wha-? Gar, it’s two in the afternoon.”

Shit, really?

“Shit, really?”

“Look, I got some real great news! You’re gonna love it! It’s from Gotham!”

My ears twitched, and I sat up on my elbows. Gotham news was always weird. Borderline insane, if you’ll pardon the bad joke. Suffice it to say, Booster had caught my attention.

“Well, you just gonna leave me hanging?” I asked. 

“Two words; New. Robin.”

“Wait, what happened to the old one?”

“Not sure yet. Could be dead, could have outgrown the scaled panties. But it’s definitely a new kid in the costume.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because unlike Batman, I ain’t blind, Gar.”

“Batman isn’t blind. That’s just a myth.”

“Yeah, well… Just trust me on this. Once the pictures hit the front page, you’ll get what I’m talking about. Oh, Ted needs my help with something. Call you later!”

“Yeah, see you-” The line cut out as he hung up on me. “-around, Booster.”

I sighed, and sat up. The covers fell off me in a heap on my lap, and I dropped the handset back onto the phone’s base and rubbed the sleep from my eyes with the back of my hand. I crawled my way out of bed and yawned as I stretched my back and arms. I stumbled over to my dresser, and took my sweet time putting on underwear, jeans, and a white t-shirt. I cuffed my pants, rolled up my sleeves, and spent a solid minute or two styling my hair with a handful of pomade in the bathroom. 

I walked out into the hallway, lazily brushing my teeth as I passed by the framed photos of yours truly and other heroes and movie stars. Made my way through the living room, past the three strangers standing by my furniture, and into the kitchen. I was pretty sure I had some bagels and lox in my fridge from yesterday, and I was starving. I washed my mouth out in the sink, poured myself a glass of water, and started scarfing down some cold breakfast. 

And then I remembered that there were three strangers in my living room, and I started mulling over my options. I could have gone with a bear; those usually intimidated people. Too slow, though. The guy in black looked fast, so maybe a bull? Nah, I didn’t wanna risk wrecking my new tv. A mountain lion though…

I roared and bared my fangs and claws. Most super villains, even the strong ones, had a nervous reaction to large cats. But all of them, even the girls, were cool as a cucumber. That was the first sign of something weird going on. But hey, I’m a nice guy, so I gave the guy another chance. 

“Let the girls go and we can settle this fairly,” I growled. One of the girls, a cutie with black hair, sighed. 

“I told you this was a bad idea,” She muttered to the guy in the costume. 

“I’m realizing that now.” He looked at me and raised his hands defensively. “Look pal, we’re not here to cause trouble. I’m Nightwing. This is Rachel, and this is Kory. We need your help.”

I shifted back to human form, leaned against the kitchen countertop, and bit into my bagel again. “Why didn’t you just call? The operator could have connected you to my agent.”

“Yeah, and then we’d get shuffled off to the back of the line. I don’t think so,” The guy said. He was serious. Serious in the most boring way possible, but serious. Why were all the vigilantes such squares? At least Superman knew how to cut loose and have fun every once in a while.

“Why is your thing more important than anyone else’s?” I shot back. “Bank robberies? Kidnappings? Giant monsters? What makes you more deserving than anyone else, to the point where you think you can just barge into my house in the middle of the day?”

It was after my little exhausted rant that the other girl, the tall orange one, stepped forward. She looked… Weird. She was buff, her eyes were bright green, and she was wearing a dress that was _way_ too small for a gal her size. Despite all that, she still looked like a babe.

“I have been held in a lab for the past several months, being poked and prodded by men who wanted my blood for _something_. I want to make them pay.”

“And _we_ want to make sure they don’t find her again,” The square added. 

And that’s when I felt like a jerk. I sighed and scratched at the back of my neck. 

“Alright, point made. Look, why don’t you girls take a seat, put your feet up. I’ll figure out a way to get the spooks off your back.”

“Spooks?” The orange girl, Kory I think, asked. She looked to the guy for an answer, but I cut him off at the pass. 

“Spooks, feds, the men in black? The government’s got guys like them all over the country. They love getting their hands on metahumans before they can become superheroes. Half the time they escape and just become super _villains_ as a way of getting revenge. That’s how you get creeps like Cinderblock and Plasmus.”

Mister tall dark and spooky shook his head and sighed. He crossed the room and stood close enough to me that I could tell exactly what kind of shampoo he used. Sunsilk? That’s queer. But not really as important as what he was saying. 

“We found her at San Francisco State College last night. She was bleeding out, and I’m positive she’s telling the truth. So what’s our game plan? Can you get in touch with Superman or something?”

“I could, but I’m not going to,” I snorted. “I can handle this, easy. And while I fix our beautiful redheaded friend’s little publicity problem, I’m gonna need you to keep her company.”

“What is your plan exactly?” Rachel, the raven haired cutie, asked. 

“Don’t worry about it! I just gotta make a few phone calls, set up an interview, and we’ll be all set. Oh, but she needs something else to wear. Go to the nearest department store and buy her some clothes that fit, will you? Something green, or maybe purple. She’ll need a full outfit, but we can worry about a wardrobe later. Use my card.” I tossed her my wallet and winked. She just scowled back before making for the door. I could already tell, she’d be a feisty one. But I also figured she’d be the most capable of the trio to get the job done quick and right.

With that all taken care of, I slipped back into my room, grabbed the phone, and dialed up Booster’s number on the rotary.

“Hey Boost, it’s Gar.”

“Gar? What’s shakin’? You see the Robin thing yet?”

“Screw Robin, I got something bigger than that,” I laughed lightly, and Booster tells me to give it to him straight. “New girl in town. Alien girl. Call up your girl at the Planet and get someone over to my place by the end of the day. This girl? She’s gonna be Superman level famous.”

“I don’t think anybody can top Superman, but we can shoot for Martian Manhunter?”

“What’s say we shoot for the middle and take the Flash’s spot?”

“Deal. So your girl, what’s her name?”

I propped the door open with my foot and watched Kory down the hall. She was chatting up her buddy, touching his shoulder like he was James Dean or something. He wasn’t _that_ cool. I cracked a smile and pitched a home run.

“Starfire. We’re gonna call her Starfire.”

Eat your heart out Martian Manhunter. I finished setting up the finer details with Booster after that. Deciding where we’d do the photo op, how quickly the Daily Planet could get someone out to interview her, maybe even a modeling gig if we wanted to really push it. If there was one thing I learned after leaving the Doom Patrol, it’s that you could never be too famous. 

I looked at the red and white leather jacket that was hanging in my closet and sighed. I still missed them. Rita, Larry, Cliff, and Kate. I grabbed the jacket off the coat hanger and tossed it over my shoulder. I needed it for the photo op. It was, after all, part of the “Beast Boy image” everyone loved so much. For me, it was just a way to remember what I came from. 

I bummed around a while while I waited for the girl to get back. Smoked a few cigarettes, listened to the radio. Shake, Rattle and Roll never failed to bring a smile to my lips when I was in a funk. Rita was always a big fan of Big Joe Turner, but I gotta say… Bill Haley knocked his version out of the park.

By the time I finish my second cigarette, I’d gotten sick of music. I was agitating to get out of the house and look for some trouble. I moved on over the the living room and found Wing and Kory on my couch, making out like there was no tomorrow. I coughed and the spook practically jumped out of his skin. 

“Feel free to make yourselves comfortable,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Just remember the furniture ain’t yours.”

“So, um.” Nightwing cleared his throat. “What’s our status?”

“My buddy’s getting in touch with a reporter. We’re meeting with Lana Lang out front at six. That’ll give Rachel enough time to get back home, teach our alien friend how to dress herself, and get ready for the interview.”

Nightwing gave me a look like I had just shot him in the ass, but Kory just looked excited to have clothes that fit. Didn’t stop her jerk boyfriend from getting in my face again.

“We’re trying to keep her safe, not point a big glowing sign at her head!”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” I shot back. “Only reason they can touch her is because nobody knows who she is! Do you ever wonder why the government doesn’t haul Superman away and cut him open? Or me? Because there’d be an uproar if we vanished out of the blue.”

I could see the plan click together in his head. He breathed out slowly and ran a hand through his hair. I gave him a pat him on the shoulder. I looked past him, right at his girl, and grinned.

“Trust me, both of you. If we make you a star, they won’t be able to do a thing about it. And you’re every photographer's _dream_.”

Nightwing sighed, and looked to Kory. “It’s your choice. Do you want to do this?”

She looked at me, stern faced and serious all of a sudden. 

“Will people stare at me?”

“Yes.”

“And they will all know who I am, and where I come from?”

“Almost definitely.”

“But I will be safe?”

“Safe from the guys who nabbed you, at least. But if you’re gonna be a hero, you gotta fight some villains.”

“I can do that.”

“So do we have a deal, miss Kory…”

“Koriand’r. And yes. We do have a deal, mister Garfield Logan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this update! Our first narration cycle is almost over too. Just one more member of the team (who I'm sure isn't going to be a surprise), and then we're back to Dick. And with next chapter, the plot is going to start moving forward a bit faster too!
> 
> Don't forget to kudos and comment!


	5. Behold The Machine Who Walks Like A Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. I just wanted to leave a note at the start of this chapter, since I'm bringing Vic into the plot now. One of the things I wanted to do with this is showcase a decade as accurately as I possibly can. I check movie and music release dates so I know what hadn't come out yet in 1954, I'm trying to stick as close as I can to actual fashion and slang, as well as what sort of people would use said slang (for example, a lot of Beat slang won't show up since none of these characters interact with Beat subculture). 
> 
> One big part of that is that, well... The 1950s were a really fucking racist decade. I don't want to whitewash that, and pretend that it wasn't racist or sexist or homophobic. It was undoubtedly a horrible era socially. I think presenting a version of history where it wasn't racist is valid, and likely preferable to "misery porn" style stories where Black people are just abused nonstop to make white viewers feel sympathy. But at the end of the day, I'm not Black, and I don't think it's my place to decide what type of story is the best way to handle it. There's a discussion on it in an episode of Deep Space Nine ("Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang"), which showcases both sides of the "historical accuracy vs how it should have been" debate. I think the best I can do is try to paint a version of the era that is accurate, but I won't indulge in misery porn either. That's not Vic's story. His story is one about being made into a cyborg and trying to hold onto his humanity as he becomes a hero.
> 
> So, upfront, here is a content warning. The language used at the time was not the language we use now. According to an anecdote I found by Bo Diddly, in the 50s the word Black was offensive enough that he nearly got into a fist fight with Ed Sullivan for using it to refer to him. Negro and Colored were used rather than Black and People of Color. Black came into common usage as the civil rights movement came to a close, and we can thank Malcolm X for pushing for Black to replace Negro. However, I will never use the N word in this story (or in real life, obviously). That's not a line I ever want to cross. 
> 
> If you don't feel comfortable reading this, I understand completely and I don't begrudge you one bit. If you do decide to keep reading, then I hope I do a good job of handling Vic with the dignity and respect he deserves.

**Victor Stone**

**STAR Labs. September 12th, 1954.**

It wasn’t even two hours into the day before everything went to hell. 

It started like it usually did, with Doctor Jones bursting into the lab and screaming at the top of his lungs. His anger, like most days, was directed at my father; the easiest target. There was a newspaper in his hands, and I watched, helpless, as he threw it at dad’s head. My dad blanched when he looked at the front page, and he started apologizing immediately. It made me feel sick.

I always saw my dad as someone brave, someone strong. But then I saw him at work. I saw the way the other scientists treated him. I saw how he just sat there and took it all; every last bit of abuse. And yet, that still wasn’t the worst day of my life. Not by a long shot. And by today, it’s just normal to see him apologize when Doctor Jones starts tearing into him like a vulture tears into its next meal. 

So I watched, and I said nothing. Not like I could have done much anyways. Not when I was hooked up like this. Thick, heavy cables were stuck into my body (what was left of it), and lead back to the computers. The first was state of the art. The best STAR Labs could afford. Ninety two point contact transistors, five hundred and fifty diodes, and a forty eight bit machine word. But there was also the _other_ computer. 

It was alien. Literally alien. According to my dad, it was part of the pod that fell from the sky. The same pod that they found the freaky orange girl in, back in Roswell. They pulled her ship apart and tried to understand it. They couldn’t. At some point, they must have realized they’d never figure it out, so they put it on the backburner until they got their hands on me. 

They made _me_ part of the ship. The tech from that ship became the tech that saved my life. The life support systems kept me breathing. The targeting systems became my new left eye. The sonic cannon became my right arm. They must have gotten creative with the rest of it, because I was given new legs and _one_ normal arm. All that was left of it after that was the computer, which they hooked me up to every morning. They told me to look through the information stored on it, and to write down everything I found. 

It was a crappy job, but at least it paid decently enough. I made nearly the same amount a week as my dad. Still less than the security guards made, though. Of course, the security guards weren’t colored. 

I turned my attention away from star charts and languages I still didn’t understand, and I watched in silence as Doctor Jones finished his shouting session. He turned on his heel and marched out of the room, before slamming the door behind him. My dad sighed, and looked at me, heartbroken. 

“Did you hear all that?” He asked in this low, tired voice. It was like he was ashamed that I saw what went down, even though it was hardly the first time. 

“Some of it,” I said. I reached out with my left hand, the only one I had anymore, and started pulling the cables out of my chest. There was a slick metal plate on my front, full of slots for hooking up to the computers. Underneath it, and all across the rest of my body, was a metal that looked, and felt, a whole lot like foil. According to my dad, it was something called “promethium”. The ship was made of nothing but the stuff. Harder than steel, and lighter than it too. Didn’t stop me from looking like something out of a bad science fiction movie though.

Dad sighed, and slumped against the table that the alien computer was resting on. We were all alone, and a quick look at the clock showed that everyone else must have been on their lunch break. But as I walked closer to Dad, I saw the paper that Doctor Jones had thrown at him. 

“Is that why he was mad today?” I asked. 

Dad nodded. “He’s been on a warpath ever since the girl escaped. But this… I think we’re really in for it now, Vic.”

I took the paper from him, and I glared at it with my one good eye. I knew I could fix this. I had the firepower, and I had the info on her. I knew from the life support logs that she was called a Tamaranean. I knew from the diagnostics that she was around my age, her actual aging temporarily halted by the pod’s cryogenic systems. And thanks to the newspaper, I knew exactly where she was. I could fix this whole mess, and maybe get Dad back into Doctor Jones’ good graces. 

I crumpled the paper up in my hand and made for the door. Doctor Jones was only just down the hall, and he turned to look at me the moment he heard my heavy footsteps clang against the linoleum floor. 

“You’re not supposed to be done with those computers for another three hours, boy.”

“I know, Doctor Jones. But I saw the paper, and I want to help.”

He sneered. “There’s nothing to help. That furry green idiot ruined _years_ of research into xenobiology. All I can do now is move on with her genetic samples.”

“But what if I could get her back?” I asked. He gave me this look, like he was actually starting to pay attention to me as something other than just another computer. “I have this sonic cannon for a reason, right? I could go into town and I could get her back.”

“She’s much more formidable than _you_ ,” He said. I could practically _feel_ the disdain he had for me. 

“Maybe. But I’d still like to try, if you’d let me sir.” I forced a smile. “I just want to help.”

“Very well then. I’ll let you give it a try,” He said. For some _strange_ reason, I doubted he actually had any faith in me. “In the meantime, I’m going to move forward with the meta gene experiments. If you _fail_ to recapture her…”

“I have no connection to STAR Labs. Not even my father knew what I was up to.”

“And you _didn’t_ get your cybernetics from _us_ ,” He added. I nodded. 

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Now go and get my alien back.”

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

**San Francisco, California.**

I hadn’t been to town in a long, long time. Not since the… the _incident_. That’s what my dad always referred to it as; “the incident”. But I never knew what to call it. Incident made it sound like an _accident_. 

I walked down the boulevard, taking care not to look anyone in the eye or cause a fuss. But even still, just the sight of my body was enough to terrify most folks. Even the well meaning ones. 

Right away I could feel the stares. Pairs of eyes shifting over and locking onto me, while panic set in. One by one, as I walked along the sidewalk, men and women stared; uncomfortable as could be. Logically, I was safe. There was nothing they could do to hurt me. But the physical danger wasn’t what concerned me. It was the _social_ danger of it all. Every pair of panicked eyes was like a dagger in my (no longer existent) flesh. Every horrified housewife’s gasp was a club over the back of my head. 

I came to a stop outside a salon. Standing beneath the awning, I watched cars drive on by and did my best to stay out of peoples’ way. A woman walked by with her son in tow, and she shielded him from me. I wanted to speak up. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t gonna hurt her boy. 

My voice got caught in my throat. 

But then I saw a girl (my age?) with freshly permed hair walk out of the shop, and I stepped out of her way and mumbled an apology. I expected her to shriek in terror and run for a policeman, but instead she stopped, and she just looked at me. It was like she was studying me, or regarding me like I was some sort of aluminum statue that had come to life. She stepped closer to me and raised her hand, but stopped short of touching (what used to be) my chest. 

“Are you advertising?” She asked. 

“Advertising?”

“Yeah, advertising. For that new movie, _Tobor The Great_! Your robot costume looks _so_ ginchy,” She said, as she circled me and inspected the futuristic tech that was fused to my body. I looked like a pulp novel villain, but she was fascinated, not scared.

“I’m… not advertising,” I tell her, feeling nervous in a whole different way all of a sudden. I felt a tingle in the back of my neck. “This is just what I look like.”

“Nifty,” She said with a smile. 

Nobody had ever smiled at me before. Not after I became this _thing_. I forgot to smile back. Wish I had. 

“So, you’re a real life robot-man?” She asked, conjuring images of that old Doom Patrol hero. “Is it okay if I touch you? Sorry if I’m being forward, but I just _love_ science fiction,” She gushed. 

“Um. I… I’m sorry, but I should go,” I say. “There’s something I have to do.”

“Something superheroic?” 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I just… nodded. It felt like a lie. Working for Doctor Jones, trying to capture a new superhero for him (even if she is an alien), didn’t feel like the heroic thing to do. But what was I going to do? Tell this girl I was about to hunt down San Francisco’s new most favorite woman? That I was gonna bag Beast Boy’s friend like she was Bambi’s momma?

She nodded back at me, and turned on her heel and walked away with just a little “Nice to meet you.” 

I realized, as I walked further down the street, that I never asked her name. I never told her mine. I think I regretted that. But I had a mission to fulfill, right? A (not so) heroic mission. 

But lucky me, I was handed “Starfire”, as they were calling her, on a silver platter. She came crashing down right into the road, just a little ways down the block. Her hair was blazing with fire, and green energy was flaring out of her hands. She was dressed like a model, and posing like a warrior, as Beast Boy joined her in the form of a hawk. 

I watched, in silence, as he turned back into a young (green and fuzzy) man and took a moment to comb his hair and adjust his jacket. Before I (or any of the normal folk) could wonder what was going on, another figure landed in the street. 

It was a man, wearing a black costume and a white cape. He looked almost like Vincent Price, of all people. He said something (I couldn’t hear it) and raised his hands up high, and then there was a flash of blinding white light. My good eye saw nothing but spots, but lucky lucky me… I had another eye. I had an eye that was an alien targeting computer. I’m sure it was just intended to find habitable planets to land on, but in a pinch it was just fine for picking out enemies. I closed my good eye and directed the other to find hostiles. 

Three possible targets. A woman; Tamaranean. A man; mutated human. Another man; baseline human with high technology. I could take down Starfire right then and there. I could blast her with my sonic cannon and escape while Beast Boy was preoccupied with the villain. I could bring her back to Doctor Jones and get in his good graces. I could, maybe, just maybe, earn my father a promotion. 

I raised my arm, the one which had a radar dish where my hand used to be, and I took aim… And I fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have the end of our first cycle! Next chapter will be back to Dick's POV, then Raven, then Kory, then Gar, then Vic again. So on and so forth. I hope you enjoyed this!
> 
> Please, don't forget to kudos and comment!


	6. Come Go With Me

**Dick Grayson**

**San Francisco, California. September 12th, 1954.**

I rolled out of bed in the morning, and I saw that my roommate was still asleep. His freckled face was buried deep into his pillow, and a line of drool was seeping out of his mouth. Ignoring that, I checked on the trunk under my bed. Nervous habit, I know. But being raised by Batman tends to leave you paranoid, and paranoia tends to have you always checking to make sure your secret is safe. 

I popped open the trunk and saw my suit and collapsible batons, right where they were meant to be under the case’s false bottom. Acting on some sense of… I don’t know, really. Some sense of something, I reached under the black and blue Nightwing costume, and pulled out a photograph. 

It was a picture of us in the batcave. Bruce and I, standing side by side. Him in his full Batman getup, cape and cowl included. Me in my old costume. Back when I was Robin. My finger brushed across the spot on the back of the photograph, where the date was written. _Batman and Robin, 1949_. I was only thirteen at the time, and I was going out every night. Not in the way most kids were, though. No, I was going out in a red tunic and green shorts, just so I could flip circles around Riddler and Hugo Strange. 

I could still remember the sensation of kicking a member of the Red Hood Gang in the jaw with my heel. The way his helmet popped off after so Bruce could get him with a batarang to the cheek. The satisfaction of it all. Working as a well oiled machine, both of us covering the other’s blind spots as best we could. The wind in my hair as I leapt off of buildings, and the way my laughter pierced the night. There was nothing else like it. 

Looking at the picture, I felt my stomach drop. I didn’t really know why I packed it. I was trying to leave that life behind me. I wasn’t Robin anymore. I was Dick, I was Nightwing. I was starting over. With a heavy sigh, I tucked the photograph back in the trunk and began to dress myself. Nightwing costume first, and then my civilian clothes over it. Just like Bruce taught me.

Kory was still staying with Gar, where she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone on campus causing trouble, so I decided to drop by and visit them after breakfast. Rachel wanted to stay cooped up in the library and study, but I managed to convince her to come with me. After all, she could study anywhere she wanted, and Kory would be sad if she didn’t show. 

I bet Rachel wanted to punch me, what with the direction the day took after that.

I ran to the edge of the rooftop and saw a great white burst of light rise up from the streets below. Lucky for me, I wasn’t able to see the source of the light, so my vision was spared from the assault. No doubt Gar and Kory weren’t so fortunate. 

I gritted my teeth, kicked off the edge of the roof, and went limp as I soared through the air. I flipped end over end, then did a handspring off of a car that was parked on the curb. I landed not far Doctor Light, just in time to hear a high pitched trilling noise. I watched as the air _rippled_ , and Light was knocked off his feet. 

I looked to the source of the noise, and saw someone that looked to be part man but mostly machine. At the end of his arm was a small radar dish. And people called Gotham weird. 

I turned to look at Doctor Light, who was scrambling to his feet and trying to figure out which one of us was the most dangerous threat. He aimed one light ray at Kory and another at the new fella, which gave me a perfect opportunity to sweep his legs out from under him with a baton. As he fell over, I bashed his knee with my other baton, and he grunted in pain. Kory must have recovered from his attack quickly, because my girl was up in no time at all and ready to blast a hole through the good doctor. 

“Should I kill him?” She asked, as her hand burned with green energy. 

“No, heroes don’t kill,” I said, resting my batons on my shoulders. “Let’s just sit on him until the police get here.”

“By “sit on”, you do not mean literally, do you?” 

“I do not.”

“Good.”

Wasn’t long before Gar joined us, and our new friend trudged on over too. I got a better look at the guy, and he had to be one of the queerest things I’d ever seen. Just about his whole body, from neck to heel, was made of shiny silver metal. The only part of him that was visibly human was three quarters of his head. Gar was looking up at the guy like he’d seen a ghost, and the robot-man was looking at Kory. He seemed tense. Real tense. 

“Thank you for your help,” Kory said. She reached out to shake his hand and I swear, he nearly leapt right out of his own robotics. But he shook her hand all the same. 

“No trouble,” He said quietly. He looked around, all nervous, as people started to crowd around. Gar grinned and waved to a few ladies, and of course they all swooned. 

“Smile, folks,” Gar said. “You’re officially real superheroes now.”

I cracked a loose grin as Kory hung an arm over my shoulders and waved to the crowd. It was a bit odd, her being the only one to not even have a costume yet. But then again, even in pink capris and a sleeveless blouse, she _also_ had the torched hair and bright orange skin. At the end of the day, she didn’t really need a costume to look like a superhero. 

But it was clear that our new Negro friend wasn’t too comfortable standing in the spotlight with us. He turned around and started to walk away. I wasn’t going to do anything to stop him, but Gar wasn’t going to have it. He circled around in front of the guy and started chatting him up.

“Hey, hold up a minute!” He laughed, and the guy stopped cold. “No need to beat feet so soon. You just helped us take down Doctor Light; you deserve your share of the credit.”

“I don’t really need it. Sorry. I’m just gonna get out of your hair.”

“And go where?” Gar asked. “Guy like you doesn’t really fit in. Hate to say it, but it’s true.”

“I’m just going-” The guy stopped, and fell quiet. Looked down at his feet and frowned. I’ve seen that face before, and I think Gar had too. It was the face of a guy who didn’t _have_ somewhere to go back to. 

“You should crash at my pad tonight,” Gar told him. “Least I can do to thank you for helping out, right? We can all go out somewhere nice, get something to eat.”

“We…?”

“Yes!” Kory said as she floated over to them. Her heels hung just inches above the ground. “The five of us. Beast Boy, Nightwing, Rachel, you, and myself.”

“And Rachel is…”

“Our friend!” She chirped. “You will like her. She is very kind.”

I turned away from the conversation, which had quickly become more of a hostage situation as the two of them strongarmed him into hanging out with us, and kept an eye on Light. Or at least, I would have, if he had still been laying where we left him.

“Drat,” I muttered. I looked up and started scanning past the crowd, trying to spot him. The others must have noticed as well, since they all went on guard. Kory’s hands lit up green, Gar turned into a cheetah, and the robot-man raised his sonic cannon. 

Suddenly, a shadow began sweeping across the ground beneath us. It grew larger and larger, then snaked out, weaving through the crowd. People began to clear out of the way in a hurry, scared of the… whatever it was. But then we saw him, Doctor Light, running away as fast as he could. 

The shadow leapt out of the ground, shifting into what almost looked like a bird as it enveloped Doctor Light and dragged him back to us. He was kicking and screaming, which only got worse when Beast Boy put a paw on his chest and snarled in his face. But we all kept watching the shadow as it retracted further, up until it returned to its owner. Sitting on a bench, with her history textbook open on her lap, was Rachel. 

She looked up at us, straight faced, and sighed. “You all need to pay more attention to the villains.”

“Touche,” Beast Boy replied, clearly impressed by her little display. 

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

I stood in the hallway of Gar’s home with the back of my head pressed against the wall. On the other side of the door nearest to me, I could hear the frustrated sounds of Kory changing clothes with the help of Rachel. Gar and Vic, as our new pal introduced himself, were in the kitchen and debating what to call Vic. Names such as Metallo, Ultron, and Computo were all rejected for sounding too evil. Hard to disagree with that sentiment.

“Well, what about-”

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear it!” Gar moaned, tossing his head back dramatically. 

“All of your ideas make me sound like I’m about to attack the Justice League.”

Gar sighed, and scratched at the back of his ear. “Robot-Man?” He suggested.

“I’m not a robot,” Vic said flatly. He sure sounded like one from how monotone he was. Gar just shook his head.

“That’s why it’s Robot- _Man_. Cliff Steel and Robert Crane still had human brains inside of those clunky tin cans.”

“What about Cyborg?” 

Both of their heads swiveled to look right at me. The gears started turning in Garfield’s head, and Vic slowly stood up from his seat at the kitchen counter. He raised his eyebrow.

“What the hell is a cyborg?” Gar asked.

“Short for Cybernetic Organism, I assume,” Vic said, cracking the first smile I’d seen out of him all day. “I think Nightwing just coined a new term.”

Suddenly, with a bang, the door flew open and Kory stomped out. She was rubbing the bridge of her nose between her fingers and growling. I put a hand on her shoulder to check that she was alright, and the furious green light in her eyes began to dim. When she looked at me, it was clear that she was still frustrated, but at least not lethally so. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking from Kory to Rachel, who was standing inside the room and looking equally frustrated.

“You humans and your _restrictive_ rules about _clothing_. This is not comfortable at all!” Kory complained. “On Tamaran, we prize _comfort_ above _aesthetics_. Humans could learn a great deal from us.”

“She’s not exactly a fan of shapewear,” Rachel explained. I didn’t blame Kory one bit for that. Rachel slipped past us and joined Gar and Vic in the kitchen, where the topic of discussion had shifted over to who had been booked for the Ed Sullivan show that night. That left Kory and I alone for a bit. 

“I doubt I could ever fight in clothing such as this,” She bemoaned. “I liked the pants better, but Rachel said that it would be considered strange for me to wear them outside of combat. I do not understand why.”

“There isn’t exactly a good reason,” I admitted. “If there was, I’d give you one. Truth is, it’s just… Well, it’s the way things are.”

I put a hand on the shiny, cinched satin waist of her evening dress, and another hand cupped her cheek. She turned her head into it and the scowl faded from her face. “If it’s worth anything, you look nice,” I said, offering her a sympathetic smile. “Purple looks good on you.”

“Thank you, Dick. And I will adjust, much as it irks me,” She sighed. She stepped forward, and I stepped back to give her room. But then she stepped closer again, and again, until I found myself pressed against the wall. With myself situated between two framed movie posters, and an alien bombshell looking down at me, I didn’t resist one bit as she kissed me. 

I reached up and buried my hands in her hair as she stole my breath away. When our lips parted, I heard a gentle laugh. Could have been mine, or hers. I wasn’t quite sure. I looked up into her eyes, all emerald green and beautiful, and smiled. Never really expected her to take an interest in me like this, but she sure did. Wasn’t even a full day after we met that she decided she wanted us to be a pair. It was so natural. Like two pieces of a puzzle just clicking together.

We kissed again, and I wrapped my arms around her waist. Again she kissed me, and this time she caressed my shoulder with one hand. As our lips locked, her hand drifted lower, closer to my chest. I cleared my throat and slipped to the side. 

“Um. Sorry,” I mumbled, scratching the back of my neck. She looked at me, all confused, and I started to stammer. “I-I don’t think Garfield wants us necking in his hallway.”

“Then… The bedroom?” Her eyes flicked towards the door at the end of the hall. 

“Er… Not what I meant,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Can we just… Take things slow for a bit?” 

“If that is what you’d prefer, Dick,” She said. She touched her forehead to mine and stole another kiss. “Then we will “take things slow”, as you say.” 

We walked back into the living room, arm in arm, where we saw the other three just sitting around. Vic was watching with interest as Gar tried to convince Rachel to join us in being a public superhero, to little avail. 

“So… We ready to head out for dinner?” I asked.

“You know it,” Gar laughed, patting his stomach. “I’m starved. Let’s shake, rattle, and roll gang.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't forget to kudos and comment!


	7. Still of The Nite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBT3oDMCWpI
> 
> Aaaaand the song Gar sings along to towards the beginning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZidGizaUrpo
> 
> And I want to give a big shoutout to fireflyxrebel, who has been reading all these chapters in advance and giving me her feedback on them! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy the new chapter!

**Rachel Roth.**

**San Francisco, California. September 12th, 1954.**

The first time I sat in a car, it was one of the strangest experiences of my life. The concept of it, when you break it down, is bizarre. Sitting still, as a machine pulls you down a paved road, as dozens upon dozens of other machines fly past you in the opposite direction. The panic that first gripped me, as a fourteen year old girl sitting in my uncle’s Ford, nearly brought me to tears. He pulled the car over and asked me if I was alright. I don’t know exactly what he saw when I looked back at him, but he looked terrified until I quelled the emotions that I was afflicted with. He drove slowly after that, but it didn’t erase the guilt I felt at upsetting him.

But sitting in Garfield’s red and white Chrysler, with Real Rock Drive crackling its way through the dashboard radio, I was perfectly at ease. I hadn’t had an episode in an automobile in years, and it felt so distant that, for the life of me, I could hardly believe it was something that had even happened. 

I looked up towards the sky as we drove, and I watched as the sun dipped below the clouds. It was all washed orange, with pink and purple just beginning to creep in. Dick and Kory were cuddling in the back seat behind me, and I saw Vic sitting next to them with his hands resting on his knees. It had taken a lot of convincing for him to agree to come with us, but I was glad he decided to in the end. I sensed a good soul within him. 

And of course, beside me, sitting behind the wheel and singing along to the radio out of tune, was Garfield. He was grinning like an idiot and wagging his finger in time with the beat of the song, and I’m certain any other girl would laugh at the sight. I blew air through my nose shook my head. He was, by and large, the biggest fool I had ever met. 

“You grab a little gal and you circle like a top, when you jump across the floor with a skip and a hop!” He sang like a throttled chicken. And yet, I found it amusing rather than annoying. Strange. 

“I’m fairly certain that Bill Haley doesn’t need your accompaniment,” I said, glancing over at him. He just laughed heartily and gave me a good look at his fangs. Bright white canines, which were larger than average, and more than justified his Beast Boy moniker.

“I blow Haley out of the water,” He said. I raised my eyebrows and gave him a skeptical look. He resumed his terrible, yet somehow not unpleasant, singing as he pulled into a parking space. It was only then, as we got out of his car, that I realized where he had driven us. 

I stared up at the building’s facade in silence. A curved, boomerang shaped roof met an angled structure that was firmly rooted in the ground. Above the roof was a large green cratered planet, with the establishment’s name written across it in massive, glowing sign letters.

“Planet Krypton?” Kory read aloud as she unhooked herself from Dick so that she could exit the vehicle. She walked up next to me and tilted her head. Her vague interest turned to confusion, and she looked down at me. “Why is this place named after a dead planet?”

“Superman,” Victor explained as he joined our little cluster of bodies. “It was his homeworld. This place opened up just last year; it’s supposed to be accurate to Kryptonian aesthetics.”

“It is,” Garfield whispered to me with a nudge of his elbow. I looked at him, and wondered how he could possibly know that. “Power Girl told me herself.”

Ah. That’s how. I had almost forgotten that we were in the presence of greatness. 

“You’ve been here with Power Girl? Isn’t she a little old for you?”

“Hah hah. Not like that,” He said with a roll of his eyes. “They’ve got a special room just for superheroes. She was there with Superman and his wife, and we struck up a conversation about her home. Nice lady.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “A room for superheroes?” I asked. 

“Yeah. Gives people a chance to talk about stuff without worrying too much about getting mobbed by fans. Why?”

“Because I am not a superhero,” I said simply. 

Gar looked at me and furrowed his brow. “You helped us with Doctor Light. That whole shadow puppet thing you did was a hell of a superpower. Never seen anything like it. Sounds like a superhero to me,” He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I frowned. If you were to look at our little group, you could see that the others were superheroes. It was as clear as day. Garfield, even if he wasn’t wearing that red and white leather jacket of his, had a light coat of green fur covering his skin. Victor was half machine, and Kory was orange, not to mention well over six feet tall and inhumanly beautiful. Even Dick was still wearing his custom gymnast’s outfit and face paint. 

I was just a seventeen year old girl wearing the nicest blue dress she owned. 

I didn’t know how to articulate those thoughts, however. How to explain that I didn’t fit in with the rest of them. Not unless I… But I couldn’t. 

“Hey, you okay?” He asked. I felt his hand on my shoulder. Fur so soft, like a kitten’s, against my bare shoulder. I looked him in the eye, and I could feel concern radiating from him in waves. “If you’re worried about not having a costume, don’t be. If Superman can bring his wife, they won’t mind us bringing a friend in. Although if you ever change your mind about being a hero, I’m sure I can hook you up with a costume. How do you feel about feathers?” He joked.

“I can… I can do something about that,” I admitted. I scratched the back of my neck, and looked at the others. They were waiting on us. On me. “I just… Worry about upsetting people with my… appearance.”

“Huh? You’re kidding, right? You look cuter than any queen,” Gar said. 

But then he watched as I changed. As my skin paled and turned a cold, dead grey. As my long black hair took on a subtle purple tint. As a second pair of eyes, just above the normal ones, opened. 

I looked at him and I asked him directly, “And now?”

His lips curled up into a smile, and he stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, it’s spooky. But it’s also real cool.”

Kory didn’t even wait before crushing me in a hug and lifting me up into the air. She laughed, and told me I looked remarkable. Dick nodded his head, and even Vic, who looked startled at first, agreed.

“C’mon dolly,” Gar said, pointing his thumb at the door of the place. “Let’s go enjoy ourselves.”

Kory released me from her grip, and I drifted slowly back to the ground. But on second thought, I stayed just an inch above the floor as we went inside. If they were going to pull me into this hero business, I might as well do what I do. And floating was easier than walking anyways.

So… I floated. I floated right behind Garfield as he spoke to the hostess, a girl in a short yellow dress and red cape. Fins, or rings, or something between the two, accented not just her uniform, but those of all the other employees. Waiters and waitresses alike were wearing similarly bright clothing, many of whom also wore small, simple golden tiaras around their heads. I surveyed them all with a degree of fascination as we were led through the restaurant and towards a side room. 

The room we entered was decorated much like the rest of the building’s interior. Rings circled the leg of every table and every chair, and chrome was used just about everywhere it possibly could be. The light fixtures above our heads were a pair of twin red suns. It was certainly a unique dining establishment. 

As we took our seats, I noticed that Dick was not with us. I looked for him, and found that he had paused, and was looking at a photograph that was framed and hanging on the wall. As I got closer to him, I saw that there were dozens of similar photographs. Each one was of a different hero, or a gathering of several. 

My eyes drifted across static images of Hourman, Superman, Miss Martian and Wonder Woman, until I came to stop on the same image that Dick was staring at. Robin, tumbling through the air with a madcap grin. Batman was hanging suspended in the air above his sidekick, braced for a landing and with a much more stern look on his face. 

“Richard?” He snapped out of the trance he had fallen into and looked at me. 

“Hm? Sorry, just… Got a bit lost looking at all these.” He laughed, and gestured to a photo of the Justice Society. “I’ll be right there.”

I nodded, and drifted back, only to bump into someone behind me. I dropped to the ground, startled, and turned around to see that I had bowled over not only myself, but Garfield as well. 

“Sorry,” We said at the same time. He pulled me to my feet and dusted off my skirt with the back of his hand. 

“You good?” He asked. I nodded. “Cool. Just figured I’d get your drink orders for Lori.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you know our waitress’ name,” I said with a small laugh as I followed him back to our table. 

“What can I say? I’m a people person.” He tossed his head back and ran a hand through his green, greased hair. When we reached the table, he hooked the leg of a chair with the crook of his heel and pulled it out for me as he walked to his own seat. It was one fluid motion, done in a way that could have been accidental just as easy as it could have been intentional. It was so careless, and yet it was done as a courtesy to me. 

That was the first moment in which I noticed how Garfield was so… So odd. I spent most of my life around only women, all of whom were older than me. When I did meet men, they were my family, or my classmates. They showed care for me, those that didn’t ignore my existence entirely. They treated me like a delicate object, as though I was not capable of doing things for myself. Sometimes, perhaps, they had cause. But many times they did not. They simply saw me as this waifish, fragile creature. Something easily broken. 

Garfield knew that I was capable of doing things for myself, and he did not treat me like I was a child. When he pulled me up, or pulled out my chair, it was not done in a patronizing manner. It was simply… Simply one person doing what he could to help another. 

It was a nice change of pace.

We ate in a comfortable silence, for most of our time there. Garfield was curious about Victor, however, and would try to prod him for answers about how he came to become the being that he now was. It was innocent, spurred on by a genuine interest, but I could feel Victor’s growing annoyance with the inquiries. 

“So it was your dad who did it? But why? Just for kicks, or-”

“I think that is a very personal question,” I cut in. Gar paused, and looked to me, then to Vic again, and seemed to realize that it was bothering him. So he nodded and shrugged as the line of questioning was dropped. 

“What about you then?” He asked, looking at me with his head propped up by his fist. 

“Me?” 

“Yeah. You a meta, like me?”

A metahuman? No. No, not at all. I was something far, far worse. There’s not quite anybody like me. But I couldn’t possibly tell them what I was. All of my magic, even the parts of it that my mother told me were good, came from a dark, terrible place. They came from my father. From Trigon. The man who I resembled in an uncanny way as I ate my salad. 

I looked at Gar, and I told him “Something like that.”

He seemed to accept that as enough of an answer. Enough, at least, to satiate his curiosity. Of course, he had more questions, but those ones were far easier to answer. Far less painful to consider. 

“So, aside from the shadows, the flying, the shapeshifting… Anything else you can do, dolly?”

“She healed me,” Kory mentioned offhand. 

“I can also… Understand souls, I suppose you could say,” I admitted. My right hand drifted to my side and began to finger the hem of my dress as I stared down at my plate. “I can feel the emotions of others. Sometimes even their intent, or if they’re lying to me. That sort of thing.”

“Neat,” Gar said. I looked at him, and I saw that he was impressed. Truly impressed. It felt… Nice, I think, to be viewed in such a glowing light. 

I smiled, and listened as the others talked through the rest of our meal. 

When we were finished, and as Garfield and Dick were debating who would settle the bill, I found myself looking at the wall of photographs from earlier. One captured the Superfamily, sitting atop the globe of The Daily Planet and eating sandwiches together. Another was a photograph of The Justice Society’s first meeting. The first Green Lantern, Keystone City’s Flash, The Atom, Hawkgirl, Stargirl and Wonder Woman stood together, beaming into the camera. There were other teams, of course. The Seven Soldiers of Victory, The Freedom Fighters, The All Star Squadron… I didn’t recognize the members myself, but my uncle knew would, on occasion, talk about the impact they had on the second world war. He even claimed to have met The Phantom Lady herself at Iwo Jima. 

My gaze drifted past the photograph of Batman and Robin that Dick had been looking at, and fell upon another team picture. It was a photograph that caught me by surprise. My heels touched down on the floor and I raised a finger to the glass. It hovered just above the face of a young boy who was covered in a thin coat of fur. He had dark stripes running along his back, and a long, rope-like tail. His face was halfway between that of a boy and that of a cat, or a tiger. 

It was Garfield. It had to have been. He sat on the shoulders of a large metal man, and he was laughing wildly. Beside them stood a man covered in bandages and a giant woman who had to crouch just to stay in the frame of the picture. Finally, there was another woman, younger than the giantess, who appeared disheveled and exhausted. All five of them wore matching costumes. 

The plaque beneath the photograph read _The Doom Patrol. July, 1947._

Suddenly, and without warning, I felt an intense pang of longing. 

I turned, and I saw Garfield standing behind me. His hands were planted in his pockets, and the cocky smile that typically adorned his face was gone. He was expressionless, at least for the moment. But then he forced a thin smile. 

“Did you and Nightwing sort things out?” I asked.

“Yeah,” He said, as he looked past me. I stepped to the side, and he moved to fill the space. He stood beside me, and regarded the photo with a powerful degree of fondness. 

“I did not know that you became a hero at such a young age,” I admitted. 

“Really? No foolin’. Yeah, I got my powers when I was about six or so. Chief took me in later that year, and I joined the team as soon as they got tired of me pestering them about it.”

“Mm. They were nice to you?”

“Nicest bunch of freaks you’d ever meet,” He said with a small, weak laugh. 

“Freaks?”

“Yeah. Cliff, Rita, Larry, Jane…” He pointed out each of the figures as he said their names. “And then me. Changeling. I was their sidekick, or mascot. Whichever makes me sound like less of a germ.” He sighed. “We were all freaks. Too weird to live with normal folks, you know? Hell, Jane was in an _actual_ carnival freak show as a teenager.”

“And you were heroes?”

“Yeah,” He said with a wistful smile. “Yeah, we were.”

“I have not heard anybody mention them before,” I remarked offhand. Realizing too late how the comment could be construed, I glanced to Garfield, only to find him touching the picture with a tender hand.

“They were never exactly big names,” He admitted. His smile faltered, but remained. “After I made it to the big leagues, PG asked if it would be okay to hang a picture of me on this wall with all the other famous heroes. I said yes, but… Only if they hung up a picture of The Doom Patrol too.”

He looked to me, and his smile grew warmer. “I wanted people to know about them.”

“They sound like good people,” I said quietly, so only he could hear me above the din of the restaurant. We turned to leave, so that we would not keep the others waiting any longer. But as we passed through the front door and met the cool night air, I heard Garfield whisper something. At least, I thought I heard it. I could not be certain, with how quiet he was. 

But if I was correct, and if he was indeed speaking, then it sounded like these words: “They were the best.”

As we walked back to his car, my body seemed to act on autopilot. I did not think, and I did not focus on anything but my own thoughts. I thought again of my own family. Not my father, or even my mother. Like Garfield and like Dick, I had a family that chose me. My aunt, and my uncle, and my cousins. They took me in when I needed a home, just as The Doom Patrol did for Garfield. 

And as I thought of my family, my finger brushed gently against the back of his hand. 

With most people, I had no difficulty in discerning their emotions. Whenever Dick looked at Kory, I could feel the yearning in his heart. When Victor was in a crowd, I could feel his fear. When Kory thought of what was done to her in that lab, I could feel the rage that threatened to boil over. Garfield however… Despite the openness and ease with which he displayed emotion throughout the day, and this evening, I could feel something beneath the surface. Something that was more clear now than ever before. 

I could feel a deep, constant aching. A pain that refused to subside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Something I tend to do with my other fics, and which I'm gonna start doing with this one too, is include various bits of trivia. Some historical stuff that's relevant, some in universe information, etc. I figure at least one person will enjoy it, so why not?
> 
> So, Planet Hollywood (which Planet Krypton is a very clear shoutout to) didn't exist until the early 1990s. However, since this is an AU where superheroes existed since WWII, I figure it's easy to believe that somebody opened up a restaurant themed after Superman and his home planet much earlier than Planet Hollywood's existence. 
> 
> Aside from stuff which superheroes have directly impacted, I'm actually finding it very challenging (but not in an overly annoying way) to keep this as period accurate as I can. Music being the big one. There were like 5 different songs I was going to have Gar sing along to in the car, but none of them had come out yet in 1954. Elvis was only just getting his start, and a lot of good rock and roll was still fairly unknown unless you paid attention to lesser known Black artists. Bill Haley and The Comets hadn't even recorded most of their well known material yet either. So... Real Rock Drive was about the 6th or 7th option. And to tell the truth, I'm not even much of a fan of it. 
> 
> However, chapter titles aren't bound to that period accuracy rule, so I've pulled out several (much better) songs from the late 50s and the 60s for those. Just things that happen in the story itself will be as period accurate as I can manage, although I'll probably get a few things wrong here and there.
> 
> Now, in terms of in universe trivia for this chapter, the big one is who owns Planet Krypton. Originally, Booster Gold tried to open up a kitschy superhero themed restaurant under the name, but he found out that Karen Starr owned the Krypton copyright. She opened up a version more inspired by Krypton itself, although with some superhero memorabilia here and there.
> 
> And related to that, the Superfamily in this AU consists of Superman (Clark Kent/Kal El), Powergirl (Karen Starr/Kara Zor-El), and Ultraman (Val Zod/Drew Bernstein), and Lois Lane. Mia Kent, the daughter of Lois and Clark, was just born earlier that year, and Jon Kent will have been born in 1958. They'll grow up to be Supergirl and Superboy, respectively. 
> 
> Aside from the JSA and Doom Patrol, the teams that get mentioned in this chapter have largely the same lineups as they did in canon. I'm going to keep the Justice League's lineup a secret for now, though. You'll get to find that out later on ;)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! I really enjoy writing these characters in this setting. Please, don't forget to kudos and comment!


	8. If Only I Could Understand You

**Koriand’r.**

**San Fernando Valley, California. September 16th, 1954.**

In my time on Earth, I had found very few places that reminded me of home. Flying above the valley, however, I could almost imagine that I was back there, on Tamaran. Just for a small, wonderful glimmer of a moment, I could pretend.

I had taken to flying there during my days, while Richard and Rachel were attending classes and Garfield and Victor did… Whatever it is that they did. But this is where _I_ went, and this is what _I_ did. 

I coasted up above the clouds with my arms outstretched and my mouth and eyes wide open. The wind blew through my hair, and it filled up my lungs, and I felt at peace with the world. The nature below me was lush and green and beautiful. Not as beautiful as on Tamaran, but it was close. I dipped lower, towards the treetops, and extended a hand to feel their leafy foliage. 

According to Rachel, this planet’s cycles lead to the trees becoming barren for several months, before finally regrowing. She also said that some areas of the planet have vastly different climates, and that our current location is one such area. I did not yet know if these trees would become barren, but I hoped that they did not. It would break my heart to see such a thing. I find little beauty in desolation.

I wandered through the deep blue sky, diving low and rising up high again, embracing the vastness of it all. There was so much empty space in the sky; unburdened by towering buildings or aircraft. It was a welcome reprieve from the claustrophobic, cluttered developments on the ground. Slowly, absentmindedly, I found myself drifting away from nature, and back towards the nearby suburban neighborhood.

Then, in the distance, I heard shouting. A young, strained voice called out. Looking in its direction, I saw a small girl; I could have assumed her to be no greater than ten years old, judging by the similarities in human and Tamaranean aging cycles. There was an older woman beside her; her mother? A sister? I flew closer to them, hoping to better understand what was upsetting the child.

My heart threatened to shatter when I saw the cause for alarm. Her pet, a small furry creature unlike anything we have back on Tamaran, was hiding in a tree outside of their home. I flew up to the small thing and reached out to it, though it was frightened. It sniffed me, and only then did it allow me to lift it and cradle it in my arms. It was so soft, and so delicate, and it purred in my hands. It almost reminded me of my peoples ancestors.

I touched down on the ground slowly, and offered the thing to its girl. Yet when she attempted to take it from me, her caretaker intervened. The woman appeared startled, and she shielded her child, as though I meant to hurt her. I meant to do no such thing. 

“Don’t touch it, Maxine,” The woman said. She wrapped a protective arm around her daughter and stared at me, as if daring me to attack first. My warm expression faltered, and my heart fell. I set the fluffy animal on the ground and watched as it nuzzled the legs of the woman and her child. 

“I apologize,” I said quietly, as I stood to my full height. Even the older woman, like most of her people, did not stand any taller than my jawline. I suddenly and inexplicably found myself feeling self conscious over that fact. “If I caused any offense, that was not my intention.”

The woman’s face twisted, growing more sour. Her child looked at me from behind her waist, and yet the woman did not become any less protective. “Maxine, take the cat and go on inside. And as for _you_ , I’m going to ask you to leave our property before I call the police, or-or a superhero.”

I tilted my head. That made no sense. I _was_ a superhero. The police, at least those who collected the villains I had apprehended, seemed to like me. They made jokes, and told me that I made their careers easy. Why would she call them to apprehend _me_?”

“Perhaps you have been misinformed?” I stepped closer to her, and she took two steps back. I could see her daughter walking towards their home with her creature, the cat, hanging from her arms. I looked back to the mother and held out an open hand. “I _am_ a superhero; a friend of Beast Boy’s. You may call me Starfire.”

“I don’t care what your name is, I want you to leave my property before my husband gets home,” The woman hissed. “I won’t have some… some _alien invader_ landing on my lawn and contaminating my child’s pet!”

So many questions swirled through my mind in that moment, as that woman glared daggers in my direction. Contamination? But I was not diseased. Invasion? But I was doing no such thing. Alien? Perhaps from their perspective, but so was Superman, and I was told that people _revered_ him and his family.

Despite my confusion, I did not want to upset the woman any further, and it was clear that my presence was upsetting her. I gave her one last, sorrowful look, before stepping backwards and into the air. With my skirts blowing behind me, I took off and flew away from the fretful woman, up into the sky above. 

As I did so, I noticed others in the area looking up at me. Men and women, even children, staring in my direction. My stomach twisted, and I did not understand why they regarded me with such distaste. Garfield had told me that heroes were beloved by the people of this world. Was he lying? Why? What had I done wrong? 

I tore through the sky like a starbolt, until the ground, and those people, were far behind me.

Once more I drifted through the clouds; yet when I felt the cool moisture on my skin it was not refreshing or freeing like it was just hours before. I felt only a deep, crippling sadness. I came up on the other side of the cloud and tucked my knees under my chin, with my arms wrapped around them. My hair blew in the wind, and I wished that it would stop, that the air would be still. It did not obey my wishes. 

Oh X’hal, if only I could understand these people! 

Everything about them confused me. From their insistence on remaining grounded to their homes of brick and steel. Their strange, restrictive rules on what men are to wear and how women are to dress, with no intersection or overlap between the two. Their belief that emotions are to be controlled, and their desire to suppress and overwrite nature with paved roads and the like. It was all so unlike home, so unlike beautiful Tamaran, where we cherish nature and the fluidity of expression and desire. 

Just as I began to feel as though I understood one facet of their culture, someone would throw into my face the fact that I understood _nothing_. I was a stranger in a strange land, and I never asked for this. It was a fate that was thrust upon me without my consent; yet I was expected to adapt with no faults and no confusion.

I did not understand how I was expected to live among them when I so clearly was _not_ like them.

I turned my head to the sun as I flew and I welcomed its rays as they washed over me; my cells soaked up its radiation like a badly needed drink and I opened my mouth to groan from the frustration of it all. 

Slowly, I found myself falling back down to Earth. Not from a lack of power, or the pull of gravity, but from the pull of my own body. I did not know why it wanted to return to the ground, but I could hardly prevent it from doing such a thing. I fell like a shooting star, until I was spiraling towards a beach.

I landed in the water with a splash; a plume of it was thrown up into the air in response to my sudden crash, and I heard a startled yelp from the shore. I stayed down there for a long while; content to allow the fish to swim around me as I watched. When I did finally emerge, I saw a young woman standing at the shore. 

I looked at her, with half my face submerged in the ebbing waves, as she stood still and looked back at me. She had short blonde hair and held a book in her hands. She watched, in silence, as I rose from the water. It had drenched my clothing, making the garments several times heavier than they already were. As water fell from my body and back into the waves below, I flew closer to the beach. I touched down, and it was then that I realized I had lost my heels somewhere between the clouds and the sea. I did not much care, as my toes dug into the hot sand beneath my feet. 

“Hello,” I said; exhaustion ringing clearly in my voice. 

“Hey,” The girl said. She approached me slowly, not out of caution, but instead walking at a casual pace. “You’re that alien girl, right? Starfire?”

“I am,” I said. I tossed my hair behind me and wrung it out as best I could. The girl laughed under her breath and raised her eyebrows. I stepped closer, and stood above her by more than a foot. Yet where the woman I had spoken to earlier reacted in fear, this girl simply took a drag on her cigarette and blew smoke out to the side of us. 

“Neat. Didn’t think I’d see a superhero when I decided to cut classes today, but that’s cool I guess,” She muttered. I tilted my head, and looked at the buildings in the distance. I did not recognize where I had landed. “Where are we?” I asked her.

“North Beach. Why?”

“I was in the valley earlier,” I explained. “I… Wandered. I have not been here before.”

She nodded, and stuck her cigarette back in her mouth. “You mostly hang out around the college campus, yeah? I see you flying around all the time.”

“I do. You attend classes there?” I asked. She nodded. “Perhaps you know my friends? Their names are Dick and Rachel.”

“Can’t say I do,” She said with a shrug. “I don’t really talk to many people outside of the racing scene. There’s the squares in my seminar I guess, but I’m not much of a people person.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, even though she looked at me like I was acting funny afterwards. I lifted my feet off the ground and spun on my heel, so I was once more facing the water. “Despite myself, I feel much the same way today,” I admitted ruefully.

“Mm. Bet we really rattle your cage, huh?” 

“I was kept in a cage when I first arrived on your planet.”

Without even a brief pause, she said “Sounds like you’re having a real swell time here then.”

I looked at her, and saw a slight, sly smile. I laughed again, and so did she. I ran a hand through my hair and sat down on the sand, with my feet in the space where the waves gently crashed against the shoreline. After a moment, she sat down beside me. 

“I struggle to understand your people.”

“I’d offer to help, but I don’t think I understand us much either,” She said as she flicked her cigarette butt into the water. “Feel free to flip your lid about how shitty humans are if you want though. I won’t be offended.”

“I do not hate you,” I said. “I just do not understand you.”

I paused, and searched for the words in the vocabulary that I had absorbed from Dick. I needed to vent my confusion, like exhaust from an overheating spaceship, if I desired any hope of moving on from those feelings. And that girl who sat with me on the sand, thankfully, was patient enough to wait. 

“I tried to help a young girl this morning,” I whispered. “Her… animal. Her _pet_ , it was stuck in a tree, and I rescued it and returned it to her. Her mother treated me like I was an invader, like I was trying to hurt her child.”

The girl sighed, and nodded her head. “Sounds like us.” I looked at her, and she scratched her head. “I’m not from around here either,” She told me, speaking much quieter than before. Her inflection shifted; her words became heavier and slightly accented. “I was born in the Soviet Union. My parents moved here with my brother and I when I was still young. I saw the way that my family was treated for their accents, for speaking their own language, and I taught myself how to sound like an American so that people wouldn’t treat me the same way.”

“Soviet Union? Is that another planet?” I asked. She laughed wryly. 

“No, although it may as well be. It’s another country, in another continent. It’s… complicated. The point is, we might as well be at war with each other. People hear my parents’ accents, and they assume that they’re spies. Never mind the fact that my folks told the American government all about Soviet metahumans when they first arrived here, in exchange for a home.”

“Why do they hate outsiders?” I asked. “Do they hate Superman too? I was told that your people loved him, yet he is Kryptonian; an alien, like me.”

“He looks like us,” She said with a shrug. “He sounds like us, he acts like us. If he had grey skin and big black eyes, they’d be afraid of him just like some folks are afraid of you.”

She pulled another cigarette from her purse and lit it with a match. The smoke was harsh and made me cough, but I did not feel comfortable asking her to put it away. Not when she was kind enough to talk with me as a fellow outsider trying to fit in.

“And Beast Boy?” I asked. 

“Pfft. He’s as American as they come. Green fur and pointy ears won’t change that,” She said with a derisive snort. “No, I can tell you all about what I’ve learned about this country. If you’re an alien, they hate you. If you’re an immigrant, they hate you. If you’re the wrong religion, they hate you. If you’re a red, they hate you. If you’re colored, they hate you. If you want to be anything they say you’re not supposed to be…”

“They hate you,” I whispered. She nodded.

“And you know what the worst part is?”

“What?” I asked. 

She shook her head and blew out a steady plume of smoke. “The worst part is… I still wouldn’t ever leave. I love this place too fucking much.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and tucked them under my chin. I watched the waves as they ebbed and flowed, and I thought of Dick. His smile, and his laughter, and his kindness, and the way he felt against my skin. I thought of Rachel, and how she healed me. I thought of Garfield and Victor, and how quickly they welcomed me. I thought of the green trees and the open, empty sky. I thought of the cool, gentle water that lapped against the warm, grainy sand. 

“I think I love it too,” I said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright gang, it's trivia time.
> 
> I don't think it's too hard to guess who Kory's conversation is with at the end, but this isn't the last of her. She's got a habit of popping up at random in my notes for this fic. She's also going to represent hot rodder culture in this AU, sort of like how Beast Boy is our resident greaser. 
> 
> Originally, it was going to be an actual historical figure that Kory talked to. I wanted to have her run into someone from the beat subculture, a poet or writer like Ginsberg or Kerouac, who she would relate to as an outsider. But then I remembered that a lot of people in that subculture were absolutely terrible fucking people, and so I substituted in our blonde Markovian friend here. 
> 
> And while it's a small cameo, the girl whose cat that Kory rescued is also a comic character! She's Maxine Baker, the daughter of Animal Man. Her mother is Ellen Baker, Animal Man's wife.


	9. Deep Into The Funnel of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the hiatus everyone! Writer’s block hit me really hard, and I only just managed to beat it. I hope this makes up for the long wait!
> 
> Chapter title comes from Funnel of Love by Wanda Jackson (technically a 60s song, but the early 60s were basically still the 50s lol)
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BXV19NfP3hA

**Gar Logan.**

**San Francisco, California. September 16th, 1954.**

You ever get kicked in the mouth so hard you start worrying that you’re gonna spit out a few teeth? And then you start worrying about how awful you’d look if you were missing a canine, and how every day a new person would ask you how you lost your tooth, and you have to explain to them that some random punk kicked you in the face while you were halfway between a gorilla and a tiger? And then you start thinking that maybe when you shapeshift, it’d bring your missing tooth back? But then you start worrying that it wouldn’t, and you really would spend the rest of your life walking around trying to never open your mouth? And that’s when you realize the fight is already over, and you won, and your teeth are perfectly fine?

No? Just me? Neato. 

I looked up from the wannabe thief, purse dangling from my jaws by its white leather strap, and I craned my neck to look at its owner as she jogged towards me. Cute girl. Redhead in a tight little sweater and a pencil skirt. Any other day, I’d be quick to morph back to human and start flirting up a storm with a babe like her. Not today, though. It wasn’t the day for that. 

“Thank you so much!” She said. At least, that’s what I assume she said. People always start with that. I just nodded and reached my head forward. I unhinged my jaws so that she could take her purse back, then started to walk past her. I heard her heels scrape on the sidewalk as she tried to follow along with me, and I could tell she wasn’t just gonna leave it at a thank you. 

I shifted back to human and took my time with it. The fur receded, but didn’t go away entirely. Same for the claws, but thankfully I didn’t have to put up with a permanent tail. I still, after all these years, don’t have a clue as to how my clothes come back, but I thank my lucky stars they do. I shrugged my jacket up further onto my shoulders and gave the girl a smile. A smile that featured each and every one of my teeth, which were all exactly where they’re meant to be. 

“Sorry cutie, but I gotta jet,” I said with a wink. I probably looked like a total ass, but this girl just ate it up. They always did. I clicked my tongue and started to morph again. Feathers and talons formed quickly, and within a few seconds, a peregrine falcon took off into the bright blue Californian sky. 

Sometimes, when I can’t stand the sound of even my own voice, I just fly. Spend a few hours coasting up and down the beach, or dive bombing french fries near the burger joints. But those are the sorts of things you do as a seagull. A falcon, well, she’s built for power. I caught some thermals and made my way towards SFSC. Dick and Rachel’s college campus.

It didn’t take me too long to find the girls’ dorms, or to spot the girl with long black hair, nose planted in an open book. Eagle eyes, baby. Eagle eyes. 

I turned from the falcon mid flight, and a tabby cat took its place. Landed on her sill without breaking a sweat, or a bone. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, and I saw that little spark in them when she realized who her cute little visitor really was. 

I meowed at her, and she shimmied over in her seat, giving me space to let me in. I went to curl up in the sunbeam on her lap, but I guess I was pushing my luck a bit too far. She grabbed me around my middle and set me down on the floor. 

“Hey there, Dolly,” I said halfway through my shift back to human. I looked down at her and put my hands in my pockets; one finger itching at my leg because I hadn’t had a cigarette since nine. 

“Garfield,” She said. Her eyes flicked up to look at me, then went right back to her textbook. “What are you doing in my room?” 

“Why are you in your room instead of class?” I asked back. 

“My first class does not begin until one in the afternoon. You did not answer my question. Why are you in my room?”

“Got bored,” I said with a shrug. I started looking around her room, just to realize she didn’t have a whole lot in the way of decorations. Her roommate had all sorts of photographs hanging up on the wall, but Rachel just had books, organized alphabetically. 

There was one picture. A small one, in a frame on top of her dresser. It was of her, and an older woman and man. Parents I guessed. Both of her folks were wearing crucifixes. Didn’t peg her as coming from a religious family, to be honest. There were also two kids, both younger than her, and a baby in the mom’s arms. Rachel was standing a bit off to the side, and she was the only one who wasn’t smiling. Like she was an outsider who got dragged into the picture against her will. Then why’d she keep it around? 

“You are bored,” She said, “and so you decided to sneak into my room while you thought I would not be here?”

“Wha- No!” My eyes shot open and I looked back at her, panicking. I had to save my skin, because that was so not what I meant.

“I-I was just looking for Dick, okay? I couldn’t find him, but you were here, so I figured I’d ask you where he was,” I lied. 

“Richard is in class.”

“Which is why I ended up here, with you,” I insisted. She cocked an eyebrow. She closed her book and set it to her side. 

“You do remember that I can tell when people are lying, yes?”

“Alright, fine!” I threw my hands up in the air in a sign of defeat, letting her know she won. She got me dead to rights. I rubbed my shoulder and scowled. “I just wanted to hang out with you. Happy?”

“Mm.” She stood up and put her book back with the others, then grabbed another one. A freaking door stopper, but she treated it like it was nothing intimidating. 

I glanced around the room again, then back to her. I couldn’t help but compare her there, on that bench, to how she looked when we went to Planet Krypton. The girl with hair as black as coal and skin that was grey like death. Four eyes and fangs. Hovering just an inch off the ground. But in her room, when she was reading a book a mile a minute, she looked so… normal. Like any other girl, just dressed a bit different. A bit less fashionable. I smiled at her, even though she wasn’t looking at me. 

“So uh… what are you up to today?” I asked. 

“Studying,” She said. 

“Studying…”

“History.”

“Neato. But also kinda boring,” I laughed. “How’s about we do something exciting instead? Beat up a few creeps, find a super villain to rumble with? Sound good to you, dolly?”

“Not particularly,” She said.

Ouch. Right to it then, huh? I understood though. She was serious, she was down to earth. Why would she wanna spend a couple hours hanging around a guy with my reputation? It stung, but I got it, and I didn’t fault her any for it. 

“Right,” I said. I looked to the window and walked over to it. I could still turn into a gull and snatch some fries down at Bibbo’s. “I should probably get outta your hair then, huh? I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Just as I was about to sprout some wings and beat it, I felt a tug on my jacket. I looked down at her, sitting there, and stopped. She wasn’t looking at me, but I don’t think it was because she wanted me gone. She looked conflicted. Like in the photo on her dresser. 

“I did not say I wanted you to leave,” She said real quietly. 

“Huh?”

“I just… would prefer not to lose track of time and risk missing my afternoon classes,” She said. I took a step back from the window. “But I would not mind your company while I studied.”

I smiled. “Then let's hang,” I said. 

She scooted over, and made a space for me next to her. I sat down and looked at the book in her hands. She was reading about the French and Indian war. Doc Caulder taught me all about it when I was still a runt. I set a hand down, and it came down on top of the fabric of her skirt. It spilled out to either side of her, so its not like I was touching her or anything. But even just being that close to her, close enough to get her scent, musty books and lilacs, felt more intimate than any time I had taken some girl to bed. 

“Bring any music to college with you?” I asked, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling. 

“I only had one record. I forgot it at my aunt’s house when I moved in here,” She said with a tiny shrug. 

“Who by?”

“...Big Mama Thornton,” She said, after a brief pause. White girl like her, listening to race records? Not the kinda thing most people admit to. At least, not geeky girls from the suburbs, with folks who wear crosses around their necks.

I nudged her with my elbow. “You’ve got taste, dolly.” She smiled, and her cheeks flushed red, but she kept her eyes on her book. 

“I just... enjoy rock and roll,” She said. 

“Oh yeah? Then what’s your favorite?” 

“Rocket 88, by the Delta Cats.” She smiled a little. Just barely. “I enjoy when they play it on the radio.”

I grinned. The girl really _did_ have taste. “I’ll make sure to buy you a record of it sometime,” I told her. “A girl deserves to have at least a couple songs for when she’s studying.”

“That would be appreciated, Garfield.”

She pulled a loose strand of hair behind her ear and chewed on the inside of her cheek. My fingers brushed against hers, just above her skirt, and she waited a couple seconds before moving her hand away to turn the page. 

“Are you… _always_ furry?” She asked after a while of us sitting in comfortable silence. I laughed. 

“Yeah, I am. Can’t really help it,” I told her. “Been like this ever since I got bitten.”

She looked at me, all surprised. “Bitten?”

“Yeah. It was this weirdo green monkey in Brazil. I was about eight years old or so at the time. Playing around in the forest while my folks were studying some wildlife,” I explained. 

“A green monkey?” She asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head a little. I nodded.

“A capuchin, with fur like a lime. Jumped outta the trees and bit me on the side. You can still see the scar, actually,” I said, gesturing to the side of my abdomen. “I went into a coma for about a year after that. When I woke up, I was all green and fluffy, and I could turn into any animal I wanted.”

Rachel went quiet for a bit. When she talked again, her voice was real low, and real soft. None of the distance or apathy that usually seemed to creep in. 

“I did not know that your powers were the result of trauma,” She said. “I am sorry for what you went through.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t trade these powers for the world. And if I never got them, I’d never have met the Doom Patrol, or you guys. That’s worth a little maiming, ain’t it?”

She laughed. 

Well not really, but it seemed like her version of laughing. She blew air out her nose and shook her head with a smile on her face. And you know what?, I’ve hung out with Power Girl, Starfire and even Wonder Woman a time or two. But none of them held a candle to her. She was so beautiful. And she laughed. She laughed because of me.

Man, I’m real gone.


	10. Science Fiction Double Feature Picture Show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Song - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zbn5b369wk

**Victor Stone**

**San Francisco, California. September 16th, 1954.**

I didn’t get out much. 

I spent a lot of time hanging around the house, just listening to Gar’s record collection or watching the television set. Sometimes I would close out the world around me and spend an afternoon searching through the information that I had downloaded from the alien ship’s computer. From Koriand’r’s computer. 

It still felt so strange, every time I looked at her. The alien. Hanging around STAR Labs, I’d only ever seen her when she was fighting back against the doctors in that cramped little room they kept her in. Sometimes I’d thought about taking her out of cryo stasis, whenever people weren’t around. But I saw what she did to the security guards. Didn’t wanna have the same happen to me. 

I opened my eyes. I was starting to understand the space pod’s language. Not a whole lot, but enough to know that it wasn’t built by the Tamaraneans. The names of the owners’ race was something along the lines of “Khund”, or maybe “Khundia”. 

I couldn’t focus on alien shit for too long, though. It just freaked me out too much. I opened my eyes and stood up slowly, taking care not to break Gar’s couch. I walked over to the fridge and grabbed myself some fixings for a sandwich. 

Four days. Four days since I had seen dad. But damn if it didn’t feel like a lifetime. I kept looking over my shoulder, like I expected him or Doctor Jones to bark something at me about slacking off and not translating the ship’s information. Four days since I had been out in public on my own, too. 

I looked out the window as my hand, my one good hand, assembled my lunch on autopilot. Never could do that before. I just set my body a task and it’d do it. Like a perfect machine. Like what they made me. I sighed, and brought the sandwich up to my lips. I took a bite as a car drove by, down the street. Bright red convertible with the hood down, so the guy and girl inside could get a taste of that warm Californian air. 

I missed going out. Spending time by the lake with mom and dad. Going fishing (never caught much but I liked it), helping mom with the gardening, even kinda missed the gnats and mosquitos. They couldn’t even bite me if they tried, now. I laughed bitterly to myself. I missed mom. I missed dad. I missed being normal. I missed my _life_. 

Life before what happened to me. 

I looked at the telephone on the counter. All black with a shiny chrome rotary. I reached out for it, and unspooled a plug from my sonic cannon. I could link up to it (bad idea). I could call dad (he would tell Doctor Jones). I could tell him I missed him (I couldn’t go back). 

I shoved myself away from the phone and forced air into my (artificial) lungs. If it weren’t for the refrigeration systems keeping me cool, I’d have been sweating, clammy and sick. Instead, I was just fighting back a wave of panic. 

And then I stopped. It was like a light went off in my head. For all I know, one probably did. I looked up, and out the window again. I lifted my sonic cannon, and I felt… strange. My sensors had locked onto something, and with my sonic cannon I could almost _feel_ it. Out there, in the distance. It was calling to me.

And lucky me, the sun would be going down in an hour or so. It’d make it harder for people to notice me. Less people around anyways. And whatever it was, whatever my (freakish) body wanted me to find, I knew deep in the back of my mind that I had to get to it before anyone from STAR Labs did. 

**************************************************************

The sun was setting, and the stars were just starting to become visible in the purple-red sky. My tracking program, or whatever it was, had led me towards the edge of town. I was wandering through a patch of trees and I could feel the signal growing stronger. Like a pulsing, from the radar dish (where my hand used to be) up through to my chest. A pounding that grew more intense as I got closer to it. 

I still didn’t know what _it_ was, but I had a decent guess. 

I reached the end of this small stretch of woods and came out to the edge of a lot. The metal of my feet ground against gravel, and I could see lights off in the distance. Shining bright, in pairs. I heard gravel grinding and looked off in the distance. Wheels on gravel. 

I was at a drive-in movie theater. A drive-in full of cars, full of teenagers and young adults. They didn’t see me, though. Not yet at least. I was far enough away, hiding behind the trees, that they thought the only monster was on the screen. 

I crept around, keeping to the edge of the lot, and walked past the normal people. Didn’t wanna spoil their innocent night out. Once I passed the screen, suspended up dozens of feet above my head, I started making my way closer. I scanned across the lot, and found the pulsing sensation got stronger the closer I aimed to the screen. It was risky (just being outside was risky), but what were they gonna do if they caught me? Try and kill me? Its been done before. I’m tougher now than I was then. 

I took it real slow, making sure not to cause too much noise. I timed my steps with the musical stings, muffling the sounds of gravel being crushed and displaced. The pulsing grew more intense. Like there was a drum beating rapidly inside me. I lowered my arm, towards the ground, and it got even faster. 

A smile crept its way onto my face. A small one. But then my arm thumped against the back of the canvas. I froze. Of course, I thought. Of course it was on the other side. Probably buried just underground, right in front of the screen. Where everyone would see me, and they’d all get scared and run away like I was the movie monster come to life. 

I wanted to groan, to scream, to punch this damned radar dish through that screen. I wanted to scare those happy, normal people away and get what I came all this way for. For a brief moment, my fuse was lit, and swore I was gonna explode. I wanted to throw logic away and _be_ the monster. 

Then I heard footsteps, and my (nonexistent) heart skipped a beat. I turned around slowly, and I saw a girl. A girl around my age, with short permed hair and a blue and white sundress. She tilted her head… and she smiled.

“I thought I saw you sneaking around back here,” She said as she walked closer, hands held behind her back. “Didn’t think I’d see you again, robot-man.” 

The girl I ran into while I was in town, looking for Starfire- for Koriand’r. She walked up and looked up at me. I towered over her. She didn’t act scared. 

“Its Cyborg, actually,” I said. I was standing stiff, too nervous to move. Didn’t wanna scare her off. Even if she pretended not to be disgusted by me. 

“What’s that mean?” She asked.

“Its something my… my friends and I came up with,” I told her. Calling them my friends felt disingenuous. Didn’t know what else to call them, though. “Its short for cybernetic organism. Because I’m-“

“Half man, half machine!” She squealed, kicking up on the tips of her toes. “That’s _so_ ginchy! I love it! Its like, I dunno, your superhero name!”

I looked away, guilty. “I’m not a superhero,” I said. 

Her mouth twisted into a small pout. “I heard that a robot-man saved people from some creep with light powers. Wasn’t that you?”

It was me. But that didn’t make me a good person. It didn’t make me a hero. I wasn’t _like_ Gar or Dick or- or even the alien. I wasn’t the kind of person who got to be a hero. I was more like the villains they fought. But this girl, this cute little redhead, she reached out and touched my (cold metal) fingers. 

“I feel bad just calling you a robot-man, or even Cyborg. What’s your name?” She asked quietly, seeming to realize at last that I didn’t want to draw attention to this side of the lot. 

“...Victor. Vic. Vic Stone.” 

She smiled again, and the guilt in my chest seemed to lessen. “Kole. Kole Weathers.” 

“That's a nice name, miss Weathers,” I said. My voice was barely above a whisper, and even then I felt like I was doing something wrong, just talking to this girl. She was so small and petite (I could crush her if I wasn’t careful). She was soft and delicate (and cute). She talked to me like this was normal, when _nothing_ about it was. I _wanted_ to smile at her, to be her friend. But I knew better than to try. It would never end well, for me or for her. So I tried (I really tried) to keep my distance. To keep things professional. 

“So is your’s,” She said. She looked my body over, and this strange, wistful sort of look came over her. “Do you ever wear clothes?” She asked. 

“I… I’m sorry, Miss?” I didn’t know how to answer that. I used to. I used to wear them, before I was turned into this thing that I had become. Saying anything about that though, it felt like the exact sort of line I was trying my damndest not to cross. 

“You should. It gets cold at night,” She said. I breathed a sigh of relief, and I smiled slightly (I didn’t mean to). 

“I get cold sometimes, but really, its okay,” I promised. I shrugged my shoulders, but my answer only seemed to concern her even more. Why did she care whether I got cold? I knew the answer, but I couldn’t even think it. I couldn’t let that thought cross my mind. 

“Here,” Kole said. She shrugged off her cardigan and threw it over my shoulders like a cape. I blinked (with my one eye) and stared at her. My breath hitched, and I didn’t know what to say. But then she took a step back, and she smiled up at me, and nodded. She seemed proud of herself. I smiled a little. 

“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that, though,” I told her. I went to take the cardigan, to give it back to her, but she held up a hand and shook her head. 

“Give it back to me later, okay?” She said. I nodded, and she smiled. “You want to watch a movie?” She asked. “Creature From The Black Lagoon is almost over, but we’re doing a double feature tonight.”

“We?”

She laughed. “Yeah, my folks own the drive-in. I work here on the weekends!” She bounced on her heels, and it took all I had not to smile and laugh along with her. She was infectious. “I love it here,” She said, looking over at the back of the screen, where we could see a mirror image of what the audience was seeing. “Science fiction movies are just so ginchy, you know? Robots and aliens and great big monsters. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to take over and run it in my folks’ place.”

I smiled softly (I shouldn’t have), and I nodded in understanding. She looked back to me, still wearing that grin, like she was letting me in on the world’s coolest secret. “What movie?” I asked.

“Monster From The Ocean Floor. Its about a big sea monster that terrorizes a town in Mexico.”

“Sounds ginchy,” I said, tossing her favorite word right back in her direction.

She grinned, and signalled for me to follow her with one hand. “The ginchiest.”

I followed her, and we made a space for ourselves, so we could watch the movie opposite to the normal folks. They sat in their cars, but we sat on the gravel. They reacted in shock and horror, but we grinned and fell in love with the monster on screen. They started petting in their cars, but us… About halfway into the movie, she dropped her head on my shoulder. I froze up, and I didn’t move until it was over. If I did anything, if I even so much as wrapped my arm around her shoulder, and anyone saw? No, I couldn’t risk that. I could never. Even just sitting there, next to her like that, was bolder than it was sane. 

In spite of all that, though… I felt my heart (artificial, robotic) beating a mile a minute. When the movie was just about over, this fool of a girl looked up at me, and I could see it on her face, what she was gonna do. Much as I wanted her to, I knew I couldn’t. We couldn’t. Not then, not ever. She moved her head closer to mine, and I watched the curve of her lips as they opened up to me. For one short, naive moment, I tilted my head towards her, before I remembered who (what) I was. 

I put a finger to her lips and I whispered to her. “We can’t do that,” I said. “I’m sorry,” I said. She blinked, and nodded. She knew what I knew (some of what I knew), but admitting it brought her close to tears. I don’t know if I even could still cry, but it damn near brought me to that point as well. Crushing her like that. Worse than if I had broken her in half like a twig. Worse than if I had gone out and terrified all those happy white kids. 

“I know,” Kole said quietly. She looked down at her lap, and I saw that she was gripping her skirts so hard her knuckles were turning white. She sniffed. “It was nice to pretend for a second or two though, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. Yeah. For a second, it was. “I should go,” I told her. I went to grab her cardigan, to give it back to her. I held it in my hand, clutching the soft blue knit, and I held it out to her. She shook her head and pushed it back into me. 

“Give it back to me another time,” She said with a sad smile. “Next time we see each other, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered. I held it, all bundled up into a ball, against my chest. Next time we saw each other. She really did think there’d be a next time, didn’t she? And if there wasn’t, then I’d have something to look at, and to remember. Girl was smarter than she let on. “Next time,” I promised, as tears welled up in her baby blue eyes. 

I don’t even remember making my way back to Gar’s house. One minute, I was sitting across from Kole, making sure she didn’t cry while I was fighting back tears of my own. The next, I was sitting on the couch, staring down at her cardigan in my hand. My face was blank, expressionless. My (fake, not real) heart was in a frenzy, banging against the walls and crying out in frustration and in pain. 

I closed my eyes, and I brought her cardigan up to my face. I smelt her perfume; roses and chrysanthemums tickling at my nose. I smiled sadly, and thought about her. Sitting there with me, red curls framing her face, soft skin just barely brushing against the metal of my body. When I brought the sweater away from my face, I saw that it had a wet spot on it, where my eye had been pressing against it. I blinked away tears. 

I guess I really did have a heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we know who Vic’s new friend is! Originally I had planned to reveal her as someone else (Tsunami of All Star Squadron), but I realized that Kole would work much better for the fic as I had planned it, and wouldn’t be quite so random. 
> 
> Plus, I’m just a big Kole fan. She deserves better than she’s gotten, historically.


	11. Life Could Be A Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song is Sh-Boom (Life Could Be A Dream) by The Chords!

**Dick Grayson.**

**San Francisco, California. September 27th, 1954.**

If there’s anything Bruce taught me that I’ll always be grateful for, it would have to be balance. How to live two lives without one being neglected, and managing to get enough sleep in between. 

I sat on the roof of my dorm, one leg hanging off the ledge while my math assignment was open on my lap. I twirled a pencil from one finger to the next as I did the formulas in my head. Another skill Bruce made sure to teach me before I left the nest. Its great for dealing with the Riddler, but giving me a leg up on homework was always a nice bonus. Didn’t stop my teachers at Gotham Academy from assuming I cheated on tests though. 

When I had just about finished, I heard a shrill ringing. It was coming from my open window. I tucked my book under one arm and grabbed the ledge, then swung myself over it and back into my room, rolling safely into a standing position. I grinned. Bruce didn’t teach me _that_. That was all mom and dad. 

Wally was still out, doing who knows what. He’d started hanging with Roy Harper and Donna Troy and that beatnik guy, Garth Shayeris. I didn’t know what to make of their group, but then again, I’m sure they felt the same about me and mine. I picked up the phone and tossed myself onto the bed, lazily holding the receiver against my head.

“Hello?”

“Robin?” I blanched. Bruce’s voice was low, with that light, purring growl to it that he got when he wasn’t in his millionaire playboy act. “Sorry,” He said, before correcting himself. “Dick. I know you’re using a different name now.”

“Yeah,” I said, as the sting of being called my old name ebbed. I pushed those feelings to the side. I hadn’t talked to Bruce in nearly a month. It was strange, hearing his voice again. “I’ve been going by Nightwing, actually. During my… extracurriculars?”

“After the bedtime story Clark told you when you were younger,” Bruce said. I could tell he was smiling, even on the other side of the country. He had that warmth to his voice. I smiled too. Just a little.

“How have you been?” Bruce asked. There was a hesitation. It was brief, but it was there. He sounded like he was dancing on eggshells. 

“I’m doing alright,” I told him, as my gaze drifted out the window, to the clear blue skies. “Making friends, making my own name.”

“And classes? They’re going alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, they’re alright. Professor Palmer is great. Not the biggest fan of Doctor Jones though. He’s a bit of a hardass.”

“Language, young-“ Bruce stopped himself. He coughed. “Sorry. I… forget sometimes. That you’re not my ward anymore.” 

My heart fell. Oh Bruce. “Its alright,” I assured him. “How’s the new kid? Jason, right?”

“Yes, Jason. He’s been taking some time to adjust. We all have, I suppose. He’s not like you. Not as… energetic as you were, at his age. A bit rougher around the edges.”

“Oh, like you, then?” I joked. Bruce laughed. It was like a bark. 

“Like me, I suppose.” 

The line fell quiet after that. I didn’t know what to say, and I don’t think he did either. After a time, I let out a deep breath, and I heard Bruce perk up on the other end. 

“I should get going,” I said quietly. Bruce made a small noise, deep in his throat. “It was real swell talking to you, Bruce.”

“We should do it more often,” He said back. I smiled tightly. 

“Maybe we can make it a regular thing. Sunday mornings, after Alfred brings in the Gotham Gazette? Does… does that sound good to you?”

“It sounds great. I’ll call you then. Have a nice day, Dick.”

“You too, Bruce,” I said as I closed my eyes, and as the line clicked off. “You too.”

**************************************************************

Campus was mostly quiet in the evening. Everyone was either in town with friends or in their rooms, studying. But as soon as I got out of my psych class, I made a beeline for Doctor Jones’ lab. I hated having to interact with the man, but I had questions about the upcoming lab, and no college professor could be as scary as Two Face on a bad night. 

I rounded a corner and saw that his door was ajar already. I pushed it open slowly, taking a moment to peek inside and see if he was there. 

He was sitting at his desk and rubbing his temples, but he wasn’t alone. There were four others, two boys, two girls, with him. They were arguing.

“You’re late, Tara. _Again_ ,” One of the boys said. His black flat top and the coin sized scar on his lower arm told me he was former military. From his age, not much older than me, I’d have guessed he did a tour in Korea before using the GI bill to come here. 

“Don’t throw a hissy fit, Grant,” The blonde said. She was shorter than the others, smoking a cigarette and looking entirely disinterested in being there. “I’m here now, aren’t I? You should be jazzed.”

He snorted in contempt. “Why someone as vacant and easy as you is even allowed in this room baffles me.”

Her nostrils flared, and I half-expected her to slap the guy. Instead she just stomped up to him, pushed her finger into his chest, and said “At least I’m not a wet rag like you, Wilson.” 

He clenched his fist. Things were about to get ugly, and everyone could see it. The air grew thick, and time seemed to slow. I kicked forward and made my presence known, waving at the group with an innocent look on my face. 

“Hey, hope I’m not interrupting anything, folks!” I called out. All eyes turned to me, and the lughead seemed to back down from what he was about to do. Good boy, I thought with a silent laugh. Heel. 

“Mister Grayson,” Doctor Jones said, not even bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice. Whether it was me or his students he was bugged more by, I couldn’t say. “To what can I owe this intrusion?”

“I just had some questions about the lab this week,” I lied. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes, you are,” The redheaded girl said. “We’re in the middle of Doctor Jones’ seminar.”

“Thank you, Selinda,” Jones said. She glowed at the praise. The professor stood up from his desk and adjusted his glasses. “My students and I are discussing genetic research.”

“Sounds keen,” I said, setting my books on an empty table. I could still feel their eyes on me, but paid it no mind. I was too curious at this point to bother making my exit. Blame the detective’s inquisitive spark that Bruce had fostered in me. 

“Indeed,” Doctor Jones said flatly. He tilted his chin upwards, and sized me up for a moment. A thin smile worked its way into his lips, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of a snake. “Tell me, Mister Grayson, have you any interest in genetic enhancement?”

Interesting question, Doctor Jones. A very interesting question indeed. “Like superhumans?” I asked, leading him along just enough to get more answers to spill out. 

“ _Exactly_.” His eyes lit up, and there was a hungry look in them. It sent a chill down my spine. “What causes superpowers to appear? Radiation? Genetic abnormalities? My students here have been studying their own genetics, learning about the potential hidden within-“

“Professor, I don’t know if we should be-“

“ _Quiet, Selinda!_ ” Doctor Jones snapped. She wilted and nodded meekly. I felt sorry for her, and for Tara. Having to put up with the jerks here. 

“It sounds really interesting, Professor,” I said, intervening once more. His attention drew back to me, and Selinda was spared any further yelling. “So the five of you are studying your own DNA?”

Doctor Jones nodded. “Precisely, Mister Grayson. And while I _had_ closed off this seminar to further additions, I would be willing to make an exception for a bright young man such as yourself.” He shot a glare at Grant, quieting him down before he could raise an objection. “If you’re interested, that is…”

As if I really had a choice. I knew how these things went. After all, my high school science teacher was Jonathan Crane. I knew that this was the exact sort of fertile soil for creating supervillains. The next Scarecrow, the next Doctor Light, odds were good that they were standing right there in the room with me. I had to stay close, to keep an eye on them. It’d have been foolish not to. 

“Sounds swell, Professor,” I said. My stomach knotted itself into a ball. “I’d love to come aboard.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Late at night, I was back up on my perch, above the dorm. Roomie was sound asleep and drooling into his pillow with a copy of Playboy magazine hanging from his hand. I figured it’d be safe enough for me to swing up onto the roof again for some fresh air. 

I could hear a radio playing from a few rooms over. Someone on my floor was listening to The Chords. I drummed my fingers against the roof in time with the beat, and a smile crossed my lips as a halo of green light shone up above my head.

“Hey there, stranger,” I said quietly as Kory touched down beside me. She tucked her skirt under her legs and took a seat; legs dangling in the air just like mine. 

“You have forgotten my name?” She asked. She tilted her head. I laughed.

“I’d never forget,” I told her. “K-o-r-i-a-n-d-r. Sounds just like the spice.” Of course, she didn’t taste like soap on my tongue. She was a whole lot sweeter. 

“Ah. Earth humor, then?”

I nodded. Her hand settled on the edge of the roof, and mine settled on top of her’s. She smiled, and so did I. The music came up to us, and I could hear Kory humming along to it as she watched the stars. 

“This song… I like it,” Kory said enthusiastically. “It is about being in love?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Yeah, it is.” Awful fitting that it’d be playing right then and there, huh? I knew I fell in love harder and faster than most folks did, always had. But right then, with her hand in mine and that silly little love song going strong, I knew it had happened again. 

“Have you ever danced before?” I asked her. She laughed. 

“We have dancing on Tamaran, yes. I danced with my father and brother quite often as a child.”

“Have you ever danced with a guy you aren’t related to?” I asked. Always smart to hide a genuine question behind a joke. But she was smart. She caught on. 

“Any marriage I would have on Tamaran would be arranged for me,” She said as she pulled her hair back and ran her fingers through the thick, bouncy curls. “The matchmaker had picked a suitor for me, but I was taken from home before I learned who my betrothed would have been. Why do you ask?”

I smiled, and sprang to my feet. I offered her a hand, and she took it. She stood up, and towered above me, a small smile on her soft orange lips. I had already forgotten all about the deal I made earlier, the risky situation I was diving headfirst into. Looking up at her, that pressure vanished off my shoulders. I was weightless. 

“Well, we’ve got the music…”

“Ask me,” She whispered, taking a step back, but still holding onto my hand.

“Koriand’r, do you want to dance with me?” 

“I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this update! 
> 
> In terms of trivia, I can confirm that the students in Dr Jones’ seminar are Teen Titans villains Terra (Tara Markov), Ravager (Grant Wilson), Mammoth and Shimmer (Baran and Selinda Flinders). And Dr Simon Jones, of course, is Psimon. 
> 
> Please don’t forget to kudos and comment!


	12. Twin Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a chapter I’ve been planning on writing from the very beginning, and I want to thank my friend Pastel for acting as a sensitivity reader and suggesting a few changes. There’s some language that wasn’t very widespread at the time this AU takes place, but is now, and figuring out how to communicate it properly (and sensitively) was a challenge that he helped me with. 
> 
> And I know this breaks our typical chapter order a bit, but I think that inserting a Raven chapter between these two would have messed up the pacing pretty badly, so her and Kory’s places are switched this cycle.

**Koriand’r.**

**San Francisco, California. September 27th, 1954.**

Dick’s hand reached out to me, and I looked up at him. There was earth-music playing, though from where I did not know. It was a song unlike any on Tamaran. It was slow, but still faster than the strings and percussion that I was used to. Still, it felt right that night, for that song to be playing. 

I reached upwards, and I took his hand. He pulled me up onto my feet, and I looked down at him. He was a slender man. His skin was soft, olive-colored and unmarked by scars or bruises. He was the most vulnerable of us, and yet he always seemed to escape harm untouched. My hand fell to his hips for a moment, before I stepped backwards. 

“Ask me,” I urged him. I had never before been asked to dance by a suitor. I had never even met my own, let alone discovered his name. I knew who the possibilities were, of course. There were only so many nobles close enough in age to myself. But that night, I did not want to dance with Hyranyr, duke of the Vyrul islands, nor did I wish to be courted by Aleyn’r, duchess of the Solren plains. 

I wanted to dance with this human boy, who laughed away all his cares and tumbled through the air like he was weightless. 

“Koriand’r, do you want to dance with me?” 

Eager joy filled my heart, and I smiled at him. “I do,” I said, before he stepped forward to meet me. 

We danced, but we did not dance like Tamaraneans. I do not know if we danced like humans, either. We danced quickly, and passionately, with my feet moving to make way for his, and his to make room for mine. He spun me like a top, and I laughed so hard I nearly doubled over. 

But then I looked up, and I saw him smiling still, and I knew we were only just beginning. The song faded away, and another took its place as I stole a kiss from his lips. The new one was faster. It was chaotic, and yet beautiful. 

“Oh, now this is more my speed,” Dick said with a laugh. “Come on, you’re gonna love this,” He promised. I was skeptical, but he quickly proved himself right.

He taught me how to dance to the loud, brassy music, and I kept pace. I spun and I hopped and Dick did the same. It was nonsense, but it was incredible. It took my breath away and left me gasping with a smile on my face. 

“Let me guess, Tamaraneans don’t have Lindy Hop?” Dick asked as he finally released me. I doubled over and placed my hands on my knees as I took in one breath after another. 

“I do not know who Lindy is, but they are a very impressive dancer,” I said. Dick laughed, and by the end of the week Victor would explain to me that Lindy Hop was the name of a dance, not a person. But I did not know that yet, and Dick did not think to correct my mistake. Instead, he simply held my hands and smiled. 

“Yeah, well so are you,” He said softly, quietly, as he leaned into the crook of my neck. I felt his breath on my skin and it tingled deliciously. I looked down at him, and felt a small heat in my chest begin to flare. 

“I want you,” I told him. My voice was low, and it was hungry, and it made him blush. 

He coughed. “Well, that’s rather direct,” He said. I kissed him, and before he could speak I kissed him again. Had I kissed him any harder, it may have bruised his pretty face. My head sank lower, to the space above his shirt collar, where I sucked at his neck. 

“Kory-“

I paused, and looked up to him, my lips still pressed to his skin. “Yesh?”

“Look, could we, erm… Would it be alright if we took this somewhere else?” 

I broke the seal between my lips and his neck and stood to my full height. Dick rubbed at his arm and looked away. He seemed… embarrassed? Worried, perhaps? I did not understand why, but I obliged him. 

“Your bedroom?” I suggested with a nod to the room below us. He blanched. 

“Not the best idea. Somewhere secluded would be for the best. Somewhere nobody’ll stumble across us.” 

I nodded. I knew of many such places, places which I had discovered during my daily travels around the state. There were several nearby. One in particular stood out to me, which I thought he might enjoy. 

“Okay,” I said softly. I placed my arms under Dick and lifted him into them. He wrapped his arms around my neck as my feet left the ground. “I have a place like that.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

During my days flying about the area, there were only a few places I found where I could be entirely alone. I preferred the beach, for the company, but when I did desire solitude, my favorite place was a hill, which overlooked a small neighborhood. The woods were to my back, there, and I was far enough away that people down below could not see me. 

My feet touched down on the grass, and so did Dick’s. He stepped away from me, and I looked at his back. 

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked him. I never did know when I was breaking the unspoken rules of human society. Normally, it annoyed me. In that moment, however, I was worried that I had upset him. 

“No,” He said quietly, like he was breaking inside. “No, its not you, its- I don’t know how to say it.”

I took a step closer, and placed a hand on his shoulder. He reached up and touched it, before his hand fell away and he sighed deeply. 

“We are alone here, Dick. You can tell me anything. I will not be upset,” I promised him. I meant it with all my heart. I could see the corners of his lips twist upwards into a bitter smile. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and he looked over the neighborhood that sprawled out before us. 

The wind picked up, and it tossed our hair and clothes. It tickled my skin, and rustled the leaves on the trees around us. I stepped closer to Dick so that I could hear him better, but the wind slowed and I heard him perfectly. 

“I actually dated someone a few years ago,” He said nervously, as he clawed at the skin of his arm. His nails sank into his flesh, and the skin paled around them. He looked at me, and I could see the fear in his eyes. “We were going steady all throughout high school. Even talked about getting married after we graduated.”

“That is so _young_ ,” I muttered. Dick laughed wryly. 

“Yeah, well… let’s just say folks put a lot of pressure on us. Its what they expect from you. But I didn’t want that. I… I wanted to come out here, to be the person I am now. And I couldn’t be this person back in Gotham, I…” His voice cracked, and tears welled up in his eyes. I wiped them from his face and held his cheeks in my hands. My heart broke for him. I still did not understand. Not yet. 

“Dick?”

“Sorry. I’m rambling.” He wiped at his face with the back of his hand and laughed again. For the first time, his laughter made me sad. “The person I was going steady with… His name was Tommy Monaghan. Kory, I was… I’m not…”

My brow furrowed in confusion. I did not understand. I hated that I did not understand. How could I empathize with him when I did not understand why he was upset in the first place? 

He looked up at me, tears in his eyes, and he sighed deeply. His fingers reached up to his shirt, and he fiddled with the buttons that held it closed for a moment, though he only unfastened the top few before his hand fell away. I could just barely see the undershirt he wore beneath it. He gripped his collar tightly, until his knuckles paled. 

“Batman designed this to help with undercover assignments. I kept it when I came out here. Its… It binds my chest down. Kory, the truth is, back in Gotham, everyone sees me as a girl.”

I smiled softly at him. Then, I understood. I finally did, and I wanted to laugh. He was worried over nothing. I kissed him, and he looked at me afterwards in confusion.

“I know who and what you are,” I told him. “You are as much a man as Garfield or Victor is. Is this not accepted on earth?”

“If it is, I’d have appreciated someone telling me,” He laughed again, in that bitter way. I kissed him again, with my lips to his temple. “I feel like a man. I always have. But nobody ever saw me that way in Gotham. I was Robin, the girl wonder. That’s why I came here, and became Nightwing. Why I became Dick. Its who I-“

“Who you really were, all your life,” I said. He nodded. “On Tamaran, sexuality and gender are known to be vast concepts. They can be fluid, like water. Whether you are a man or a woman, or neither, it does not matter to me. I will love you regardless, Dick. I promise you that. And when I love you, I love you as a man.”

He smiled weakly, and laid his head against my chest. His arms wrapped around me, and mine around him, and we embraced each other in silence for a long while. 

“Don’t tell anyone, please?” He asked quietly, as though speaking any louder may have broken his voice. “I don’t think many people would be as understanding as you.”

I nodded against him. “I promise.”

Dick’s smile grew wider, and he pulled me down, to the ground, where the soft grass and soil lay. My hand came up to touch the curve of his jaw, and he kissed me, softly at first, and then more deeply. 

The night was only just beginning, and I did not want to leave this place just yet. I had a feeling that he did not want to leave either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Dick being a trans man, like I said at the top, was something I’ve had in mind since the very start of this AU, and I’ve been trying to hint at it as best as I could without giving it away entirely until now. Part of the reason is because I have a policy of always putting trans characters into my writing, but also because there was actually a documented transgender subculture in the 50s, even if its largely forgotten these days. 
> 
> Next chapter is going to be another slight deviation from the norm. I’ll be posting a bonus chapter, but it doesn’t contain any plot progression or the like. It’s a nsfw scene that’s entirely skippable if you’re a minor, or just prefer not to read it. 
> 
> As for trivia, Dick’s ex boyfriend that he mentions is sort of a name I just picked out of a hat. Its the secret identity of a character named Hitman, although I did consider making it Roy Harper, before deciding I’d rather save Roy in case I want to include him in this AU at a later date.
> 
> And as always, please kudos and comment! Just keep it respectful, okay?


	13. BONUS: Dancing In The Moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey gang, just another heads up: this chapter is a bonus NSFW chapter. It has no effect on the plot, so if you would rather skip it, feel free.

**Dick Grayson.**

I didn’t expect things to go quite so far, quite so fast. That’s not to say that I was _opposed_ , of course. I have to give it to her, she was very… blunt, when she wanted to be. 

“Have you ever mated before?” 

I coughed and sputtered, and looked at her. She tilted her head, eyes open and curious. 

“Not really, no,” I admitted. I scratched at the nape of my neck and tried not to blush too much. “My… boyfriend and I never got past the heavy petting stage.” 

She nodded sagely. “Is it enjoyable?” 

I looked at her for a moment, in silence. She wasn’t being nosy, I realized. She had mentioned having suitors, but none that she picked. She was less experienced than me when it came to relationships. She was just plain curious. 

“Parts of it were,” I said with a small smile. I hadn’t reminisced about those days in what felt like forever. Tommy was hard not to like. “The only problem was… me, I guess,” I admitted. “I couldn’t fully enjoy it at that point in my life.”

“But now?” She asked, reading my face like a book. I looked down and laughed. 

“Ask me,” I told her, parroting what she had said on the roof of the dorm. 

She crawled over to me, and stretched one leg across my lap, straddling me with her fingers wandering across my shoulders and neck. 

“Would you like to mate, Dick Grayson?” 

I grinned. “I’d love to.”

She kissed me then, hungry enough to nearly bowl me over. I kissed her back, pushed her back, and she let me. She eased backwards, with my body against hers, until her back was on the ground and I was on top of her. My hands reached up to her neck, brushed against her collarbone. She purred at the touch, and a smile worked its way across her face. 

My fingers fell down, to the top button of her blouse. One by one, I unfastened the buttons, until the delicate white shirt fell open and exposed her bra. I fought back a nervous laugh. I had never been on this side of things before, but it felt right. It felt _good_. 

I stole another kiss from her, and my fingers curled around the cup of her bra, digging gently into the orange flesh that it concealed. She moaned softly and brought her leg up, rubbing it against my side. 

My hands wandered lower, towards her hips, her waist, where I pulled down the metal zipper of her skirt. She wriggled free of it and knelt in front of me, wearing nothing but her undergarments. She wrapped her arms loosely around my neck and brushed her lips against mine. I could feel the smile on her face as I pulled her into another kiss. 

My hand crept lower, coming to the waistband of her panties. Her breath hitched, and she parted her legs, and I slipped my hand inside. 

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

**Koriand’r.**

There were a great many new experiences that I had discovered on Earth. Some were enjoyable, others distasteful. None of them were like this. 

Dick’s hand slid beneath my waistband, and I could feel his fingers trace the folds of my vulva. I shivered with anticipation, and whispered to him, asking him to push further. He did so, and I rocked against his hand, my hips bucking gently back and forth. He pumped his fingers in time with my gyrations, and it felt _wonderful_. 

I gripped his hair in my hands, his dark locks twisting under my fingers as he penetrated me. He kissed me over and over and over again, each time making it harder for me to steady my breath. His thumb brushed against my clitoris and I whimpered, bucking my hips instinctively. 

“D’you like that?” He asked, whispering the words into my ear. I could feel his lips moving against my lobe, and I could only moan, nodding, as an answer. He laughed, light like the air, and continued fingering me. 

His hand rocked against me, fingers slipping deeper and deeper with each returning motion. With his thumb teasing me, pushing me into exhilaration, it was all that I could do to simply not fall apart, a heap in his arms. I held onto him tightly, and buried my face in the crook of his neck. 

I was losing my mind. That was what it felt like. I could not so much as formulate a sentence. I could hardly think straight. I could not think at all. I could not… I could not… I could not-

I stopped, and my body quaked, and a guttural moan freed itself from my lungs. My eyes were shut tight, and yet I saw _stars_. 

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

**Dick Grayson.**

Kory fell against me as the orgasm wracked her body. From what she had told me, from what she had implied, it was her very first. I cradled her in my arms and smiled when her eyes fluttered open.

Her mouth moved without words for several long moments, before she seemed to find her bearings, and her eyes came back into focus. 

“I… I enjoyed that _immensely_ ,” She gasped out, awe dripping from every word. I laughed, and kissed her on the forehead. Of course that was how she’d say it. I shouldn’t have expected anything less eloquent, or to the point. 

“Well I’m glad, babe.” I brushed several stray curls out of her face and behind her ear with my hand, so I could see the blissful look on her face. 

She was so beautiful.


	14. Around The Clock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song is Rock Around The Clock, which is the rare chapter song that the characters would be able to listen to in the months this chapter is set. Released in May of 1954, so it’d possibly still be on the radio by October? Wouldn’t actually be popular until 1955 in our timeline, but hey, maybe it was a bigger hit right off the bat in this universe.

**Rachel Roth.**

**October 1st, 1954. San Francisco, California.**

I had heard the phrase “sweet dreams” a few times throughout my life. Never in my life had I experienced one such dream. All I ever had were nightmares. 

I was hanging in the sky, suspended like a puppet, dangling from its strings. I could not control my arms, nor my legs. I could only stare down at the streets below in abject horror. My heart broke for what I saw.

There was no life to be found that was not suffering greatly. I saw the faces of the people who mattered to me greatly, silently crying behind smiles with too many teeth. Richard, Victor, Aunt Alice, Uncle Jack, even my own mother… Like marionettes under the skillful hand of an unseen force. 

They worked and toiled, their fingers worked to raw stumps, while I searched frantically for the two faces that I simply could not find. Where were they, I asked without words. Where had they gone? Were they okay? I begged and pleaded with the being, the puppeteer behind this misfortune, to give me an answer. 

_”Look over there,”_ It told me with ten dischordant thousand voices. _”See them suffer. See them bleat like stuck sheep.”_

I saw. I saw them, and it turned my stomach. I screwed my eyes shut tight, and yet still I saw them. The images were seared into my mind. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. The cacophony of a legion’s laughter split my mind open, and unraveled that which lay within like a spool of thread. 

I awoke in a cold sweat. The clock on my bedside table read 4:30 in the morning. There were tears in my eyes, and film on my lips. I saw my shadow quaking in the corner of the room, cast in the pale glow of the early morning sun. 

I set my feet on the floor one at a time and stood slowly, as I urged my heart to slow its pace. My shadow returned to me as I dressed myself, and by the time the clock read 5:15, the nightmare was but a memory, lingering in the back of my mind, just like all the others.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I did not understand how Garfield managed to do it, but once again, as he had multiple times, he convinced me to join him off campus after my classes were over. Not as Rachel, but as Raven, with my skin cold and grey, and with four dark eyes peering out at the world. 

Yet, standing next to him, I did not feel quite so strange taking such a form. 

He pulled his cigarette from his lips and knocked some ash off into the street as we walked, side by side, with nowhere in particular on our minds. My fingers brushed across the spines of the books I held against my chest; Textbooks on advanced mathematics, european history, horticulture and human biology, and sandwiched between them, a copy of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. 

“I am surprised that nobody has stopped us,” I noted, my wandering eyes catching sight of many curious onlookers, who watched us and shared whispered comments with one another. 

Garfield laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Depends on where we are in town. Around here, most folks are used to seeing capes. They won’t ask for autographs unless they see us knock some heads.”

I nodded in understanding as we rounded a street corner. Garfield pointed out a diner down the road that he liked to frequent, and turned to look at me. 

“Hungry? We can grab a burger and hit those books together.”

“You are not a student,” I pointed out.

“That doesn’t make me illiterate!” He gasped, pressing a hand to his chest in a display of mock offense. I rolled my eyes. “You saying you don’t want a study partner?”

“I… would not be opposed to the idea,” I admitted. He grinned, and I smiled softly as he held the door to the diner open for me. I had never had a study partner before. I was used to doing it in the corner of a library, or on my bed back home, with only my shadow as company. 

We took our seats in a booth towards the back corner of the diner, and I pulled my violet scarf up over my head. An older couple watched me with suspicion, but looked away after Garfield waved in their direction. 

“So, what’re we dealing with?” He asked, looking at the books I had brought with me. He stopped suddenly, and grabbed one of them before I could stop him, and flipped it open to look at what was inside. “What’s this one?” 

“It is a book of poems,” I said under my breath as I attempted to retrieve it from his grasp. He pulled it out of reach and read a page at random. 

“Poems about cats? What’s a gumby-“

I sighed. “Please give it back,” I said calmly, fighting the irritation that bubbled up deep within myself. He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and handed it back, as though he hadn’t even cared enough to take it in the first place. I set it on the lap of my skirt, under the table, and looked at the photographs which hung on the wall, ignoring the growing heat on my face. 

When I looked back, there was a jade-colored tabby cat sitting across from me, with its paws on the table. It meowed. I gave Garfield a bemused look, and he shifted back to normal. 

“I’m gonna get you to laugh one of these days, dolly,” He said with a teasing smile. The words rolled off his tongue so smoothly, like an actor had rehearsed them from a script for weeks. He was setting up a challenge for himself. Even more, he was setting up a challenge that he was destined to fail. My control over my emotions was absolute. It had to be. 

“I do not laugh,” I told him. He opened his mouth to respond, but paused. His hair stood on end, and similarly, I felt a strange disturbance in the energy surrounding us. 

I felt a twisting, sucking sensation as the air around us was displaced and pulled away to someplace else. Blue lightning arced out and struck the ground at our feet, scorching the red and white linoleum with small black splotches. 

In the center of the diner, there was a hole in the universe, and I looked directly into it. I saw the nothing beyond space, the void between eons, the chaos inherent in the ever-fraying threads of our universe. I saw that nothingness, and I saw the being that emerged from it. Two hands, which reached out and grabbed the distorted edges of the void, and pulled himself through.

A man in gleaming golden armor stood in the middle of the diner, a glowing white light emanating from a glass on his chest. His helmet, like a medieval knight’s, bore an emblem not unlike a sundial on its brow. His thin black mustache twitched as his lips curled into a smirk. 

“Ah, here we are!” He exclaimed with pride. He thrust his arms outwards, as if to embrace his accomplishment, while the diner patrons recoiled in fear. “An eating establishment, no? From the decor, I’m guessing mid-20th century, yes? Nineteen fifty… six? No, no, don’t tell me… fifty four!”

Garfield wasted no time in leaping to the defense of those around us. He hopped onto the table and bared his fangs. “Wherever you came from, pal, ya might wanna consider goin’ back there _real_ quick.”

The man did not act surprised. He simply turned to face Garfield and smirked. 

“Changeling, yes? Or is this when you were using the Beast Boy moniker? No matter. You’re still just one hero. No Titans yet to back you up, no? Yes, at this point in your timeline, you’re little match for Warp!”

“Oh yeah? Prove it,” Garfield growled as his fingernails sharpened into tiger claws. “Lets rumble.”

The man, Warp, extended his arm in Garfield’s direction. At first, it seemed as though nothing happened. Then I saw the rift in space open behind Garfield, and Warp stepped backwards. He traveled through one hole in reality and came out the other, where he grabbed Garfield from behind and threw him, back into the rift, out the other, where he landed on his back at Warp’s feet. 

He raised his boot and set it on Garfield’s chest, pinning him in place while he laughed. He believed that he had already won. I smiled ever so slightly at that. 

“Such a primitive era you live in,” Warp boasted to the onlooking patrons. “If only you could _see_ what becomes of this world! The glory, the splendor, the ivory towers that pierce the sky! You still think the atomic bomb is the pinnacle of scientific achievement, yes? Unlocking the metagene is still so far beyond your _puny_ little minds. That is why I’ve come to you. I shall plunder this backwards era and take from you as I please, with no Legionaires to stand in my way. Just you try and stop me, yes?”

“So you are a common thief. That is a disappointment.”

He froze, and turned to look at me as I stood and exited the booth. My scarf still covered my extra eyes, but he could see the cold greyness of my skin, and the sharpness of my nails. I looked up, and he blanched, his monologue grinding to a halt as he attempted to factor in the new information he had been presented with. 

My soul self did not wait. It snaked along the tiled floor and lashed out at him, wrestling him off of Garfield and shoving his armored body into the ceiling. He fell quickly, only to be caught by an emerald gorilla. Garfield snorted in Warp’s face, then tossed him back to me. 

A rift opened, and he fell through it before I could attack him again. I wasted no time, however, in following him through the void before it closed back up.

We came through the other side on the roof of the diner. Warp lay limp on the roof, but quickly scrambled to his feet and faced me, a panicked expression written across his face. 

“Y-you’re Raven. Nineteen fifty four, th-the Titans aren’t supposed to form until September! Yes?”

“September has ended; it is _October_ ,” I told him. “You are a poor historian. And an even worse villain.”

A tendril of shadow unfurled itself and wrapped around his middle. It pulled him to the ground and squeezed until he was gasping for air. I let him go, but not without first taking a moment to smother his eyes with inky darkness, robbing him of his sight. 

He stood and swung blindly with his fists. I took a step back, but his next wild attack made contact with the side of my head. I staggered, and tripped over my heels. He must have noticed my fall, as he wasted no time in kicking me in the stomach. I felt pain. I felt anger at that pain. Anger was dangerous, more dangerous than most emotions. That was what I had been taught, ever since I was a child. 

When his boot swung into my stomach, I forgot those lessons. 

I grabbed his ankle, and I stole from him every ounce of anger that he felt. I stole his arrogance, and his hope of victory. I drained every emotion that he felt, save for one, and I allowed myself to get drunk off the resulting cocktail. While I rose to my feet, and then above him entirely, he shrank back, with only _fear_ running through his veins. Fear, like morphine’s dark reflection, _poisoning_ his mind. 

I grinned like the _devil_ , and stoney skin turned to brimstone, as crimson as my father’s. My scarf blew away in the breeze, and dark hair whipped wildly as my shadow grew. It swallowed him up, like a _snake_ would _vermin_ , and I _laughed_. Such a _fool_ , to think he could harm the daughter of _Trigon_. He deserved a fool’s _death_. 

With one motion of my finger, he was carried up to me, buoyed by my soul self, and he stared at me like a _rodent_ might stare at a _god_. 

“ _Has the future forgotten me, you worm?_ ”

“Raven?”

“ _Beg for mercy, fool. Beg, and perhaps I shall grant you a merciful death._ ”

“Raven!”

My head snapped in the direction of the voice, and I saw Garfield, standing on the rooftop, several feet below us. His red jacket flapped in the wind, and his hair was blown wild and free. His gaze did not falter from me. My rage, however, could not help but falter with him watching. 

I looked at Warp, and saw him shivering with fear. My hand was at his throat. I withdrew it quickly, and we descended. He fell away from me, and he curled in on himself as the wave of stolen emotions crashed down on him all at once. 

I turned my face from Garfield as a different, more familiar emotion gripped me. Shame. Shame at what I had done, what I had allowed myself to become, what Garfield had seen. The true version of myself. My father’s daughter. 

I felt his hand on my shoulder, and my skin turned grey once more. I forced myself to look him in the eye, and when I saw the worry on his face, my skin returned to the color of my mother’s. He wrapped his arms around me and held me as I collapsed. I turned my head into his neck and felt hot tears well up in my eyes. Feeling was dangerous, and yet I could not help but feel the shame turn to sadness. I could not help the way I felt. I could not help it. I simply could not.

By the time I opened my eyes, the sun had begun to set, and we were alone on the rooftop. The spot where Warp had been was singed black, and I looked to Garfield for answers.

“He vanished a couple minutes ago,” He said quietly. His arms were still around me, and I did not pry myself free from his gentle embrace. 

“Why did you not stop him?” I asked, my voice hoarse, hardly to be heard at all.

He shrugged, as though it had not even occurred to him to do such a thing. “Figured it was more important to stay with you, I guess.”

He was wrong. He was such a foolish boy, to think me more important than stopping Warp’s escape when it happened right in front of him. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I felt something else rise up inside me. Another feeling. Another emotion I knew that I ought to have denied myself. Perhaps I was a fool as well, because I allowed it to stay, and to grow like a flower inside myself. 

I curled up on myself, and I blinked away my tears as he held me in his arms. I buried my neck in him, and I clutched the folds of his white shirt. I could not help but think that he smelled almost like a cat. A strange thought. One of many that he inspired. I was too tired to deny them, however. I was far too tired, and they felt far too nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... trivia time? Yes?
> 
> Warp’s depiction as a time traveler here comes from his incarnation in the Teen Titans cartoon, though in this AU he’s from the time period of the Legion of Superheroes. 
> 
> I’ve also decided to just toss in some random fun facts that probably won’t make their way into the fic, but which are canon to it regardless. Just for fun. Today’s theme is favorite songs.
> 
> Dick’s favorite is I Walk The Line by Johnny Cash
> 
> Rachel’s favorite is Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog (she likes Elvis’ cover too, but not quite as much)
> 
> Gar’s favorite is a 3-way tie between Rock Around The Clock, Itty Bitty Pretty One, and Rocket 88
> 
> Kory’s favorite is Sh-Boom, followed closely by Everyday by Buddy Holly
> 
> And finally, Vic’s favorite is Long Tall Sally.


	15. Be Still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter song is Be Still by The Killers!

**Garfield Logan.**

**October 1st, 1954. San Francisco, California.**

The first time I fought a supervillain, I was about nine years old. The Doom Patrol kept me around the manor most of the time, but I always wanted to go out on missions with them. Seeing Rita, Larry, Jane and Cliff get all suited up in their costumes and running off to save the day… I wanted to be just like them.

I got my wish, too. Nine years old, and Madame Rouge snuck into the manor while they were off fighting Mister 103. I knew right away that she wasn’t really Rita, like she was pretending to be. She smelled like plastic and chemical runoff. Rita always smelled like fancy french perfume. To a nine year old who liked turning into a dog, it was like telling night from day. 

The point of this story? The point is that I’d been fighting supervillains since before my voice broke. That’s why I didn’t flip my lid over losing Warp. I knew his type. He’d be back, sooner or later, to try and take Rachel out and prove he wasn’t scared of her. He had too much pride to leave things the way they had ended. 

So… we waited. I waited. Lit up a cigarette and smoked it down to the butt. When I had put it out on the bottom of my shoe, I asked Rachel what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go. 

“Home,” She said in this small, shaking voice. “I would like to go home.”

“Just point the way.”

She nodded against my chest and her lips moved, but there was no sound. I watched as her shadow rose up around us, wrapped us up inside of it, and pulled us deep down, into someplace else. It was like being pulled underwater, and I half-expected to drown in it. We sank below it all, suspended in liquid darkness. 

Then the shadow broke, and light streamed in between the cracks as it returned to its spot on the ground, next to mine. We weren’t on top of the diner anymore. We were in a bedroom, with a small, white wooden bed frame behind us, and a cracked-open door ahead. 

Rachel stood up real slow, and I steadied her until she was standing just fine. She pulled her skirt under her legs and sat on top of the bed, head and long black hair hanging low. 

I looked around the room. It wasn’t her dorm. Too big for that. There was another bed though, on the other side of the room. The sheets were all messy, not like the ones under Rachel. Her dresser was covered with small stacks of books and an unfinished knitting project, but it was all laid out neatly and organized just right, so it looked like hardly anything was there at all. 

“So this is home,” I said. She looked up and nodded, just a little. I smiled. She was coming out of her shell. Slowly, yeah, and she was still trembling, but she _was_. That was how I knew I didn’t have to worry none. 

I pulled off my jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She jumped a little, and looked at me like I just threw my wallet down a sewer drain. I tapped her nose with my finger. 

“There’s a joke about being jacketed in here somewhere.”

She made a little noise. Almost sounded like a laugh, but I knew that couldn’t be it. She just shook her head. “You always have a joke,” She said.

“Its why the babes can’t get enough of me.”

“Except for me.”

“Except for you, dolly.” 

I was smiling, ‘course I was, but I felt something queer. Something warm, like when you heat your hands after being out in the cold for too long. Something warm against the cold. Looked almost like she felt it too. Almost. 

She pulled her hair behind her ears and looked around the room for the first time since we got there. Truth is, her bedroom looked perfectly normal. Not all that different from any other girl’s, at least. Wouldn’t be hard at all to picture her studying for a chemistry exam, listening to silly pop songs on the radio and thinking about… whatever it is that girls think about. 

“I am… sorry,” She said real quietly. 

I shrugged. “Hey, you didn’t do anything worth regretting. Don’t sweat it.”

“I nearly-“

“But you didn’t.”

She pulled my jacket tighter around herself, like a blanket. “I could have. I could lose control again someday.”

“I’ll be there to bring you back down,” I promised. “Every time.”

“What if I hurt you?”

I gave her my best grin. “Then I’ll just have to try harder.”

She shook her head. “You are a foolish boy,” She said. “I am a… I am… not normal.”

“Rae, I’m green and covered in fur. We’re pals with an alien who busted her way out of a government lab. We’re too cool for normal.”

“But I am…”

I put my hand on her shoulder, and she looked at me. I saw how wet her eyes looked, how close she was to crying again. I felt her fear; don’t know how, but I did. 

“You’re you. You’re Rachel Roth, you’re Raven, you’re the coolest fuckin’ girl I’ve ever met. Whoever or whatever your folks are-“

“You heard me say his name?”

She looked terrified, and I could feel it. That cold, trembling knot was in my gut too. I felt afraid, but I wasn’t. Not of her. Never could be.

“I didn’t recognize it, but yeah. He some old super villain?”

“Trigon is far worse than that,” She whispered. “I have spent all my life _trying_ to resist his influence, to prove that I am not like him. But I… I _am_ like him.”

“Your dad doesn’t get to decide who you are, Rae. Only person who gets to decide that is you.”

She didn’t say anything. She pulled her knees up and tucked them under her chin, wrapped her arms around her shins and stared dead ahead at the wall. I moved my hand from her shoulder to her back, and we stayed like that for a while. Just sitting. Just thinking. 

My ears twitched as I heard a sound, some ways away. Creaking wood, and low heels walking. My attention snapped to the door, just in time to watch some housewife push it open and poke her head inside.

“Mary Beth, are you in- Oh.”

I waved. Seemed like the polite thing to do. 

“Rachel? Why is there a green boy in your bedroom?” She asked slowly. 

Rachel raised her head real slow, and took a few seconds to respond. “This is Garfield. He is a friend of mine.”

“Okay. That brings me to my second question; why didn’t you tell me you were dropping by? I would have held off on dinner if I had known.”

The woman walked into the room, and I got a better look at her. Curly brown hair, coral colored dress, big bright blue eyes. She had the same nose as Rachel, though. Same eyes, even if they were a different color. She looked nice enough, normal enough, to be anyone’s mom. And of course, like anyone’s mom, she tried not to show that she was bristling at the sight of Rachel wearing some guy’s jacket. 

“Sorry, Aunt Alice,” Rachel said. “I did not wish to disturb you. I was just… homesick.”

Alice softened quick. “You’re not disturbing anything, Rachel. This is still your home, and I’m glad you decided to visit. You can always stay for the weekend, if you’d like.”

“I would like that. Thank you.”

“Well, there’s leftovers downstairs in the refrigerator if you get hungry,” Alice said. “Mary Beth and Billy are downstairs with Jack, if you’d like to say hi.”

“I will,” Rachel said. I breathed a sigh of relief, and jostled her gently with a bump from my knee. She tried to hide a smile, but I caught it. Honest. And hey, I was in the clear. What was there not to be happy over?

“Oh, Garfield? I’d like to speak with you in the hallway, if you’d please.”

Hah. Like I was ever gonna get off that hook. 

I hopped off Rachel’s bed and followed her aunt outside. With her heels, she was about as tall as I was, which didn’t exactly help me feel less intimidated. Madame Rouge pretending to be my mom? No sweat. A girl’s aunt sizing me up and deciding whether or not to kick me to the curb? Much scarier. 

She shut the door and looked me over. I almost wished I could have traded bodies with Dick. She’d probably like him just fine. 

“What are your intentions with my niece?”

Straight to it. Damn, lady. 

“We’re just friends,” I said. “Honest.”

“Mhm. I wasn’t born yesterday, young man.”

“Look, I get it,” I said. “You find some guy you’ve never seen before in your niece’s room, you make assumptions. But I really am _just_ her friend.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Shame. I was hoping a boy had finally taken interest.”

“Wait, what?”

She sighed. “Her uncle and I have spent the last few years trying to get her to come out of that shell of her’s. She’s such a wonderful girl, and I’m glad she’s at least made a friend since starting college.”

“For what its worth, she’s made a few,” I cut in. “And I’m the only green one.”

“Mm. Is another one orange?”

Nearly did a double take at that. “How’d you-“

“I watch the news. It wasn’t too difficult to connect the dots.”

“So you know about her… stuff?” I asked, doing my best mystical hand gestures. 

“”Stuff” is certainly one way to put it,” She said with a little smile. It was kind of a sad smile though. Her eyes swung back to me and narrowed. “You’re not to tell anyone about her situation. Family is what matters most in this house, but outside of it… most people wouldn’t be as understanding of what happened to my sister. Understood, young man?”

“Understood, ma’am,” I promised. 

“Good. And wash that grease out of your hair, okay?”

I cracked a grin. “My uncle Cliff always told me not to make a promise I can’t keep.”

She turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at me. “You can stay for the weekend, but you’ll have to sleep in the guest room.”

I slumped against the wall and pressed the back of my head against it. My ears perked up at the sound of the doorknob turning, and I looked over as Rachel walked out into the hall. 

“Hey dolly,” I said. 

She smiled. “Hi. Are you still hungry?”

“You just read my mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, time for notes. 
> 
> Alice and the rest of Rachel’s family are all canon characters, and the wildest thing about them in this AU is that literally nothing is different about them. In the Raven comics they appear in, they’re more or less a 1950s nuclear family in the modern day, so like... they fit well here. 
> 
> As for trivia, lets keep this relevant to the chapter. In this AU, Arella’s story is mostly the same. She and Alice grew up in a rather conservative and abusive family, even for the times, and she ran away from home because of that. During the great depression, she met a man who offered to keep her safe and help her out, but he was actually a weakened Trigon in disguise. 
> 
> Rachel was born on earth, and Trigon tried to take her from Arella, but she escaped and was brought to Azarath, where Rachel was raised. Rachel decided to go back to earth on her own when she was a teenager, and she tracked down Alice, who immediately brought her into her home and treated her like another daughter. 
> 
> Please don’t forget to kudos and comment!


	16. Tin Man (With A Heart)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title isn’t a song, but like both of Vic’s previous chapter titles, its evoking a movie. I think I’m going to be making a habit of that going forward.

**Victor Stone.**

**October 2nd, 1954. San Francisco, California.**

My ma always told me, ever since I was a little kid, that I got too deep inside my own head, that I had to live in the moment more often. Don’t hesitate, she’d tell me. Just jump on in. Make some friends, ask that girl on a date, make your life an adventure. 

The day I came home holding Karen Beecher’s hand, ma nearly burst out of her own body. She was just that excited to see her son finally growing up I guess. I’m sure she’d be so proud to see me moping around now. 

I came up to the back of the drive-in screen and sighed. Half a month gone by since I last talked to her. Not ma, but Kole. Damn cute girl, and I shoved her away. I should never have done that (it was the smart thing to do), and I regretted it every day since (like a chump). I’d been too scared to go back and dig up whatever it was that my machinery was screaming at me to find. Figured, finally, that it’d be best to go at dawn. Less likely for someone (her) to find me. 

The sun was still climbing its way into the sky, and the light was pale to the point of greyness. I trudged forward, arm aimed at the spot where the signal was transmitting from. It was mind-numbing, how intense the vibrations were. Like an alarm going off inside my skull. 

I knelt down and dug my fist into the earth. The soil gave way easily with how much force I put out. I pulled it away and dropped it to the side. I dug deep, and I dug with the kind of precision that only came from knowing _exactly_ where you were looking. 

My other eye blinked. I didn’t know it could do that. Suddenly, I was seeing in green, rather than black and white. I could see past the dirt, down into the earth, where a small pale light blinked slowly. I reached down, pushed my way through, and grabbed hold of it. It was so small. A little peg with a light at one end and a small wire coming out the other. I held it up to the light, and my vision switched back to a wash of grey. 

It wanted to be part of the ship again. Part of me. I didn’t even think (what was wrong with me?), I just held it to my chest and inserted it into a small hole I barely noticed before; a perfect fit. I seized for a fraction of a second as the wire connected. 

I knew what it was then. I knew its journey. Where it had been and the course it took to this spot. How could I _not_? It was a tracking beacon. That was its job. It was just doing what it was made to do. 

What it was made to do. 

How long had it been since Doctor Jones sent me to capture Kory? How long had it been since I up and vanished on him and dad? Were they hunting me down, like I had hunted down this beacon? Coming to reclaim the (stolen) technology that they had grafted to me? What would they do to everyone who stood in their way? What would they do when they got me? When they got Kory?

“Hey, there you are.”

I turned to the sound. My targeting systems locked onto the only human life in the area; Nightwing. He was sitting up in a tree, in full costume, save for a mask, dangling his legs off the branch. 

“Hey,” I said. 

“What’re you up to?” He asked. 

“Not much,” I lied. 

He grinned, that kind of grin where you just know someone’s cruising to get into trouble. “So you won’t mind helping me deal with a little something?”

“Depends,” I said. “What “little something” do you gotta to deal with?”

He started to laugh.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I looked out, across the lot, at the garage Dick had led me to. The sun was bright, shining a light on it. We were on the edge of town, and there wasn’t much around besides the larger than average machine shop. 

I stared at the building’s facade, and my vision shifted. The cybernetic eye that was hooked into my face fuzzed out from shades of grey to pitch black, then blinked back, transmitting images to my brain in a wash of green. 

“Well damn,” I whispered.

“What? D’you see something?” Dick asked. 

“You could say that,” I said, as I counted silently. “There’s about twelve people inside. Maybe as many as fifteen.” 

“How can you tell?”

“I can see through walls.”

Dick whistled, impressed. “Gosh, that’ll be useful,” He said. “How long have you been able to pull that trick out of your sleeve?”

“Since this morning,” I told him. 

“Neato.”

I glanced at him, and even when he was painted green, that boy’s grin worried me. I’ll admit, it excited me too. 

“So we’re taking down a chop shop? That’s it?” I asked. It seemed like a bit much. Maybe he was just bored, I figured, and wanted to blow off steam. 

“Its been on my radar ever since I moved here,” He said, as he brushed charcoal around his eyes in the shape of a domino mask. “The fella who runs it is a real piece of work. Strong-arms teenagers into dropping out of school, then sets them to work here. I put him on the back burner for a while, but once I heard he was dipping his toes into gun smuggling…”

“You figured it was about time.”

“Yep.”

I nodded. Made sense to me. And given the choice between throwing a gun smuggler through a wall or getting lovesick over a girl (that I pushed away)... Well, it was an easy choice. That was the moment I decided I was glad that Dick picked me. 

“How do you want to play this?” I asked. 

“You said there’s twelve people inside?”

“Maybe more.”

“How about you come in from the front, I’ll come in from the rear, and we meet in the middle? Sound like a plan?”

“Sounds like,” I said. 

Dick slinked off towards the rear entrance of the garage, while I marched up to the front door. I looked through the walls and saw four bodies in the front of the place, hanging out just beyond the door. 

I knocked. Seemed the polite thing to do. 

“Hey Jackie, that you? ‘Bout time you finally- Oh.”

The door opened, and a blond kid in greasy brown mechanic’s coveralls looked up at me, slack-jawed. The cigarette fell from his mouth, and I stamped it out under my foot. 

“You ain’t Jackie,” He said. 

“No, I’m not,” I said back. “Now, why don’t you get outta here before fists start flying?”

He looked back at his friends. One of them, a bit older and with a greased black DA, narrowed his eyes and reached behind the front counter. The other, another blond, grabbed a chain off the wall. I sighed. 

Then I hit the first one with a sonic blast. He slammed into the wall and crumpled, while his black-haired friend found the six-shooter he was looking for and leveled it at me. 

“Put that down,” I told him.

“No way, man. I’m gonna drop you, a-and then we’re gonna strip you for parts. Right, Max?” He asked, glancing at his friend with the chain. Max swallowed, and then nodded shakily. 

“R-right, Donnie. Right.”

“That would be a mistake,” I said. 

I hit him with a sonic blast, just like I did the first kid, and the gun flew out of his hands. It hit the ground and went off; the bullet punched through the wall, and Max damn near pissed his pants. He dropped his chain and made for the door. I let him run. 

“Get out of here, kid,” I said. It was his second warning. I didn’t wanna have to give him a third. 

“Fuck you, tin man!” He spat. Shame. I didn’t feel good about beating up on him. Really didn’t. But when he went for the gun again, I didn’t hesitate to grab him by his collar and toss him out the door. 

I heard another gun cock. Then two more. Turned around and saw two more boys, still just kids, sixteen at the oldest, flanking a grown man with a dirty goatee and a brown cowboy hat. His leather jacket looked like it had been through a warzone, and he chomped on a cigar the same size as one of his large, grubby fingers. He held a revolver in his other hand, and waved it lazily.

“You mind tellin’ ol’ Ding Dong Daddy what the devil’s goin’ on here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s right, folks. Ding Dong Daddy, the best villain in Teen Titans history. I kid, but like Warp, he’s a villain that made an impression on me when I watched the old cartoon as a kid. He also fits very very easily into this time period, so I figured he’d make a good villain for this part of the story. 
> 
> For trivia about this universe, I don’t think I really have much to talk about this time. Hopefully next chapter I’ll figure out something to discuss!
> 
> In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this update! Please kudos and comment!


	17. Ding Dong, Daddy-O

**Dick Grayson.**

**October 2nd, 1954. San Francisco, California.**

Elbow to gut. Boot to skull. Billy club to the back of the knee. Fist to lower jaw. Body to floor, body to floor, body to floor. 

I spun the billy club in my hand. I liked the feel of it, gripped tightly or spinning like a parade baton. Bruce always said that weapons aided in a fight, but that you should never rely on them. If you lose it, he said, you’ll be hopeless. 

I loosened my grip on it and let it fly from my fingertips. It soared across the open space in the back of the garage, and made contact on a young man’s sternum. He fell back, into a cart of tools, and groaned in pain. I dashed toward him, kicked off the ground, kicked off the wall, and drove my knee into his cheek. He dropped, just like his three friends. I held out my hand and caught the billy club before it touched the ground. 

“Four grease monkeys down,” I noted. I looked up, and scanned the remaining group. “Now, which swell fella wants the next dance?”

A blond kid with messy hair and a thick streak of oil across his cheek stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. He was the biggest of the group, and was puffing up his chest so he’d look even bigger. Still, couldn’t have been much older than the rest. I cocked a smile, to match his sneer, and waited for him to make the first move.

He lurched towards me with a raised fist, but dodging a haymaker was one of the first things Bruce taught me how to do. I sidestepped him, kicked out a foot to catch his ankle, and let gravity and momentum handle the rest. He dropped with a look of panic on his face, and I took the chance to pop another one of his friends in the head with my billy club. 

“C’mon guys, you gotta do better than that,” I groaned. Joker goons were better than them. I’d had more trouble with the Red Hood gang. Even _Clock King’s_ mooks put up a better fight. But you get what you pay for, and I doubt Ding Dong Daddy paid them much. 

Boot to shin, club to shoulder, and then a standing backflip to sail over the last guy’s head. All he needed were two quick jabs to the ribs, from behind, before he crumpled. I felt bad, beating on teenagers, but I had had to do it often enough in Gotham. Guys like this, they just loved to bring kids into the fold. 

I heard a groan, which turned into a snarl, and turned to watch as the blond stood back up. He raised his fists up in a boxer’s stance and weaved carefully around his whimpering friends, towards me. 

“I’m gonna kill you, you circus freak.”

I scoffed. “That’s not very nice,” I said as I slipped casually into a defensive stance. “What would your mother think of that sort of language?”

“Fuck you.” 

I kicked off the ground before he had finished the insult, and jabbed my billy club into his gut. He grunted, then growled, and wrapped his arms around me. I tried to wriggle free, but before I could, he pushed forward and slammed me into an engine block. A sharp pain shot through my back, but I gritted my teeth, took the pain, and raised my legs to kick him away. He staggered back a few steps, and grabbed a wrench off a tool cart. 

“Look kid, we don’t have to do this,” I told him as I recomposed myself. “I’m sure nobody’ll complain if you ditch this place and go back home.”

“I need the money.”

“Then get an honest job.”

He laughed wryly. “You don’t get it, do you? Whatever. It doesn’t matter none. Once I crack your head open, Ding Dong’ll promote me, and I’ll be making enough bread to set me up for life.”

He swung the wrench in a wide arc, aimed at my head. I ducked under it, and heard the clang of heavy iron against heavy iron. While he was drawing back, I shoved my foot into his family jewels and let him hunch over from the pain. A back swing from my fist sent him to the floor, and I set my foot on his chest. 

“Stay down, kid,” I said with a sigh as I wiped my brow with the back of my hand. “I promise you, you don’t wanna keep heading down this road.”

He went to stand back up, but after a moment, he must’ve thought better, and he gave in. Dropped his wrench and stopped bothering. I was relieved, to be completely honest. He was built like a linebacker, and he tackled like one too. My back still ached from its little meet-cute with the engine, and I wasn’t exactly keen to go another round with the kid. 

With the shop cleared out, I crept into an adjacent room; Ding Dong Daddy’s office, which the poor sap left hanging wide open. I could hear a commotion going on in the front of the building. The sounds of Cyborg’s sonic cannon burst loudly enough to be heard easily through the thick walls of the office. Heck, the whole building shook whenever it fired. Dude had some horsepower, that was for sure. 

By the end of my first year with Bruce, he had taught me how to crack twenty different kinds of safes. Ding Dong’s was the easiest model to crack by a _mile_. And lucky lucky me, it was where he kept a fat file full of juicy information. The kinda information that could get a guy’s operation shut down in a minute. 

I tucked it under my left arm and ducked out of the room as I heard an engine revving. I ran outside and caught up to Vic just in time to see Ding Dong peeling out in a souped up hotrod. 

“Any chance you got a birdmobile lying around here?” Cyborg asked after a long, semi-impressed whistle. 

“I wish. You got anything to slow him down?”

“I wish.”

That was when Vic squinted, and looked up. I followed his gaze, and noticed something off in the distance. Something that was arcing through the sky, leaving a smoky trail in its wake. It was falling, faster and faster, until it slammed into the ground… right in front of Ding Dong Daddy’s getaway car. 

The car went up, and landed on its side. Vic and I exchanged a quick look before running to catch up to the site of the collision, but we both had a good bet on what, or who, rather, had just stopped him from escaping. 

She rose gracefully from the small crater she had made, bringing herself up to her full height like a model might. Her dress was shredded and scorched, still licked by a few small flames, which gave way to smoldering embers. 

“Who is this man?” Kory asked as she pulled him out of the crunched up car and lugged him over her shoulder. 

“Bad guy, babe,” I said with a wave. “That’s the bad guy.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

She wrinkled up her nose. “Why do they all look so… unpleasant?”

“How so?” I asked. 

We were back at Gar and Vic’s pad, the two of us taking up just about every space on the sofa. Kory’s one hand was buried in her curly red cloud of hair, while the other was fiddling with my own. My head was on her lap, and my leg hooked over the back of the couch while my arm dangled to the floor. 

“The man from today, Ding Dong Daddy. He was _repulsive_. He smelled like a Khund who hadn’t bathed in months.”

“She’s not wrong,” Garfield said as he poked his head out of the refrigerator. “Rae and I got into it with some guy who looked like the Wrigley’s elf a few days ago.”

“And the time traveler with the bad Vincent Price mustache,” Rachel added from her chair in the corner. She turned the page of her book, although how she could read with her head bent straight down and her hair hanging like a shiny black curtain was anyone’s guess. 

“We might need some help with that guy,” Gar mused quietly, but not quietly enough, to himself before stuffing his face with half a sandwich. 

“We should go after him,” Vic said suddenly as he entered the room and filled out the entrance to the hallway. “Together. All five of us, as a team.”

I cracked a smile. “Vic, are you actually _supporting_ us acting as a team?” 

He smiled slightly and shook his head. “Today wasn’t half bad, circus boy. I’m not against doing it more often.”

“I would not be opposed either,” Rachel admitted, looking up and pushing her hair behind her ears. She shifted awkwardly in her seat, and dog-eared her book before shutting it. “Although Koriand’r and I may require costumes if we are going to be superheroes.”

“More human clothes?” Kory asked, before tossing her head back with a loud groan. “You must truly despise me.” She opened her eyes and looked at Rachel, before adding “That was a joke.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said in turn. I… think the exchange was an earnest one. 

“Give me a week and I can get that sorted,” Gar said. He shifted into a small bird for a brief moment as he flitted from the kitchen to where we were sitting, and turned back to land on the arm of the couch, just beside Kory. “Although you’ll need another name too, dolly.”

She let out a breath, but nodded, before checking the time. “I should go,” She said quietly. “My aunt is making dinner, and I promised I would be there. Garfield?”

He nodded, and stood up, grabbing his jacket off the back of a chair and tossing it on as he escorted her out the door, and towards his car. They waved goodbye, and Vic left not long after that, but not before giving me and Kory a long, silent look. It was hard for me to guess what he was thinking sometimes, but I could tell he was thinking deeply about something. Whatever it was, I’d make sure to catch up later and talk to him about it. For the moment, though, there was an empty house and a pretty girl, and I had some ideas in my head that just wouldn’t go away.

“Hey, babe?”

“Mm?”

“What’s your home planet like?”

She smiled wistfully, and looked off into the distance, out the window. She opened her mouth, and I listened intently to everything she had to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don’t forget to kudos and comment! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this chapter!


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